


The Next Adventure

by QuailiTea



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Thursday Next - Jasper Fforde
Genre: Action/Adventure, BookWorld, Cameos, Gen, MFMM Year of Tropes, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-02 03:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11501031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuailiTea/pseuds/QuailiTea
Summary: Phryne's plane has crashed, and she's having trouble remembering her own history. Wasn't this supposed to be a story about Sydney gangs and the drug trade?And who is this strange woman in a leather jacket?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm a gigantic fan of the Phryne Fisher books, as well as the TV series. I also adore Jasper Fforde, and use The Well of Lost Plots as a sort of personal writing manual whenever I get stuck. So, for July's trope of mashing up space and time however we please, I thought I'd try the question of: "How do we reconcile book canon with TV canon," with a dash of my favorite Jurisfiction agent thrown in.

Phryne’s mind has always floated – well, hurtled – from one place, one time, one adventure to the next. But now she finds herself at sea, without sail or paddle. Scenes from her life are floating past her eyes like a box of glossy magazine pages tossed into the ocean, disordered, half-submerged, wandering together without any particular reasoning.

A pair of gloves she had bought her last week. Lace, with silken flowers at the wrists. Curious laughter from a man with pointed teeth, like a cat's. One tumbler filled with whiskey, swirling. The shattered forearm and strangely-hanging uniform sleeve of a young soldier who laughed hysterically as she dragged him from the mud and heaved the doors of her ambulance shut, which coalesced into the curlicued burst of patterned calico on her mother’s good Sunday dress from when she was a child.

This wouldn’t do. Something was happening, and she needed to find a place to start – to stop the spinning. “Give me a fixed point and I shall move the world.” Archimedes. Newton? Greek. Definitely Greek. She sighed and rolled onto her back, but was arrested by a sharp pain. It felt like a thunderbolt, but pain was a start. Hang onto that sensation and follow it like Theseus through the labyrinth. Was she in France?

France was war – bombs, mud, rain, tin flasks, helmets, gasoline seeping into the skin, lice and flies crawling. France meant corpses or men in various stages of the journey toward becoming one. But her ears weren’t whistling with bullets or ringing with shells. There were no sounds of engines, dying whimperings or hiss of gas. No. Not France. And she had ears, two of them, or at least one that was functioning, to tell her that she had made it out of France and was not lying in the tracks of her own vehicle as she waited for someone to discover her mangled and broken, with something unknown jabbing her back.

Yes, pain. Follow that. Something was wrapped around her wrist that might have been a rope, or a shredded glove, or a ruined fishing net. Mr. Butler would have to ask Mrs. Butler for her good shears if that were the case. Mrs. Butler? Was there a Mrs. Butler? Something was wrong with the thought, but she couldn’t tell what. But Mrs. Butler was teaching Ruth how to cook today – one of her delicious, complicated jellies. But who was Ruth? Although saddle of lamb and jellied fruits would be far better than whatever taste it was that was in her mouth. Gasoline and salt.

She shifted again, and felt the restraint against her wrist once more. It occurred to her that she could try to open her eyes. But, for whatever reason, the information they presented her with did not help her with sorting out where, or when she was, or what was going on. She was near water, that much was evident. There was an abstract sculpture of canvas and metal and smoke arrayed nearby, shifting in shape as the breeze wafted around her, but no other people or vehicles anywhere. And the landscape seemed quite pristine. So, not France. What had happened after France? Back to England. And then to Australia. But so much was wrong – was shifting back and forth in her head like the waves on the water in front of her. Had she left her sister in England, or in Australia? Had she come back to find her, or to leave her behind? Memory was proving a severe headache, so she abandoned it for the time being. Instead, she looked around.

She was on the shores of a body of water. The water rolled against the narrow strip of sand with enough force to make her discard a lake, but the lack of salt smell suggested river over ocean. Clustered reeds and grasses were peering up in irregular patterns a few feet ahead her, a foreground to the wreckage that was thankfully not on fire. The collection of debris was clustered around the base of a copse of trees, and she was tethered to it by a long, tangled rope of silken strands. The gravity of the situation was sinking in.

She was tied to her smoldering airplane by what was quite likely her own parachute. That needed to be remedied, quickly. Phryne scanned along the ground for a handy cutting tool. A piece of propeller came to hand, and she hacked away awkwardly, parting the strands a few at a time. With a gasp of pain as the metal gouged into her palm, she freed her tangled arm and was able to drag herself to a seated position. Her back ached, but when she pulled her hand away, no blood came with it. Blow to the kidney then, she wagered. “I’ve had better landings,” she rasped, shocking herself with the sound of her own voice. “But others have had worse.”

Immediate needs then. She looked along the riverbank, still too dizzy and sore to do more. She spotted a flight helmet with a cracked pair of goggles just out of arm’s reach, and wiggled left until she could bring it to hand. “Point of a helmet,” she said ruefully, dragging a broken fingernail across a deep gouge in the leather. There was a satchel a few feet further away, which hopefully would have something useful in it, but every movement was causing light to flash in her eyes, and she didn’t want to risk passing out once more, not in this precarious state. She still didn’t know what country she was in, and her ticket out was no more than a battered, smoldering clump against the trees. The fact that it wasn’t on fire suggested she had run out of fuel and needed to bail out.

“Alas, poor Rigel, I knew her, Horatio.” The Shakespeare quote fired through her frame with an unexpected bite. Pain again, though of a different stripe. Follow that. Sitting on the proscenium, listening to someone quote Antony and Cleopatra. But then there was a different, slightly stronger image of herself in a shining silver sheath, with kohled eyeliner and an ornate ring on her finger, overawing someone (someone different?) who was calling her the Silver Lady in reverential tones. But who was it who called her Silver Lady?

Her memories, as they wandered in and out, had an odd distance to them, as if some or all of them had happened to someone else, and she’d merely read about her own escapades in a novel, or heard them on a radio show. She thought of Dot, and found she couldn’t picture her companion’s face without a painful sense of double-vision. On one hand, Dot was fair and blushing, with pinned-up blonde waves and a peach cardigan and floral straw hat. On the other, she was a plain-spoken dark brunette, and her surname was… Bryant? No, Williams, surely. She was almost positive it was Williams, and she was engaged to a police constable. The beach and the wreckage swam and prickled again, forcing her to stop thinking about Dot, beyond filing the name back into its proper place in her mind. Dot Williams, she told herself firmly.

A few more deep breaths steadied her again. “Stay in the present, Phryne. Never mind the past for now.” It was a philosophy that had held her in good stead before, so she leaned into the moment with all her might. The sun crept forward with her. She breathed in rhythm with the noises of the water, inching her way forward. Slowly, she reached the satchel, then the cockpit of the plane, then the trees beyond it. She found a canteen of water in the bag, swigged a few mouthfuls, wrapped herself in the silk of her parachute, and fell asleep like a bucket falling down a well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is curious, the muddle about Dot's name comes from a typo in my electronic version of Cocaine Blues, where Dot introduces herself as Dorothy Bryant for a couple of chapters. But in the end, canon wins out!


	2. Chapter 2

When she awoke again, someone was calling in the distance.

“Hello? Hello, anyone out here?”

Phryne struggled into consciousness, relieved that the bright sunshine had dimmed into a warm dusk in a soothing collage of pinks and purples. The footsteps of her rescuer grew louder, and she sat up again, noting that she was still sore, but somewhat readier for action after a rest.

“Hello?”

“Over here,” Phryne rattled. The footsteps crunched closer and louder, as the caller picked up speed. From out of the trees, a woman emerged. She wore worker’s denim pants and a curiously-cut leather jacket, and had brown hair surrounding a face lined with concern.

“Oh good,” the woman said, “You’re alive and awake. I saw the smoke from your plane, but I was losing it along with the light. Hello Miss Fisher.”

“You know me? I’m afraid I don’t remember you,” the detective replied, fighting off another wave of nausea as she tried to place the strange face. “I don’t seem to be able to remember a great deal right now.”

“I’ve been briefed on you,” the woman replied. “You don’t know me, don’t worry.”

“Are you DB or MI5? American?”

“Jurisfiction. My name is Agent Thursday Next.” Phryne blinked.

“Juris…?”

“Narrative policing and fiction enforcement?” Phryne nodded as the term came back to her. “You disappeared between chapters from your latest book, and I was sent out to find you. You’ve given a lot of people a lot of headaches.” She knelt down and began untangling Phryne from the parachute, helping her to her feet.

“I have a headache of my own,” Phryne replied. “Everything before I woke up is a painful blur. And a lot of what I’ve thought about since too.”

“So you don’t recall leaving your narrative three days ago in the middle of a routine flight of your plane? You didn’t do a runner?” As she spoke, she was carefully inspecting Phryne’s cuts and bruises, dabbing her with antiseptic and offering bandages from out of a camp bag she had dropped on the ground next to them.

“Not at all,” Miss Fisher said. “I remember thinking I would like a little time away, but I would have at least packed more than a bag with a canteen and a lighter for that. And I would have let somebody know, free-spirit reputation notwithstanding.” The agent nodded, but was apparently unconvinced.

“I know _The Yarra Razors_ is a harrowing book, I would understand if it became difficult to follow it through. You get kidnapped by throat-slashing gangsters, D.I. Robinson's undercover operation gets compromised, Dot's sister is trapped in a prostitution ring, your lover James Clarence turns out to be spineless, and ultimately, the gangsters merely withdraw from Sydney after their cult leader is exposed. You even have your wardrobe set on fire." Phryne shook her head in weary acknowledgement. "I have a few Phrynes who would be more than happy to step in if you’re feeling drawn to take a vacation. Fan Fiction has been producing some excellent specimens lately.” She drew a sheet of paper out of her pocket and showed Phryne a long list of names. “There’s a slew of authors here you can pick from, if you’d like to choose your stand-in. One of WhoPooh’s is filling in for you right now.”

“Well, not to say I wouldn’t mind avoiding that bunch of throat-slashers and all the havoc, but it’s more than that.” Phryne leaned against a tree and looked out over the river. “I feel like I’m remembering my adventures as dreams. And I don’t know what’s happened to me, but I’m determined to figure out why my life has been scrambled like this.”

“You could come back with me now,” Next offered. “Your family is very worried about you.”

“My family is in England.” Phryne said, uncertainty creeping into her voice.

“I’m guessing that’s part of the headaches?” Thursday’s voice was kind, but worry flashed in her eyes again. “Personal history feeling conflicted and foggy?”

“Among other things.” She shot a questioning look at the agent, who smiled encouragingly.

“I’ve had more than a few experiences with this sort of thing. You’re running into an alternate timeline event, and it’s wreaking havoc. I’m guessing the first episode hit while you were in the air, which is why the plane ran out of fuel. It had been fueled for the flight to Geelong that you take in the first chapter, but you’re outside of Albury here.”

“Alternate timeline?” Phryne’s head was still spinning, but this time, it was simple incomprehension. “Like H. G. Wells, _The Time Machine_?”

“Roughly, yes,” replied Thursday. She knelt next to her bag and began unpacking it further, producing sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper and a thermos of what proved to be extremely strong black coffee. Phryne gave an appreciative sigh as she swigged the inky beverage down. “Now, if you could come with me, I can escort you back to the start of the book. Everyone is very worried about you.”

“Everyone being?”

“Well, Dot, Jane and Ruth, Mr. and Mrs. Butler, Lin Chung, of course,” Thursday paused, seeing Phryne go somewhat grey and begin to wobble. “Do you need to sit back down?”

“I think I’d better.”

Agent Next, having clearly decided Phryne was in no shape to go anywhere quite yet, was quick to set up a little camp for the pair of them outside the copse and away from the waving river grasses. Once she had gotten the fire crackling happily, she produced a tent and a pair of sleeping bags from out of the bag, which seemed far too small for the purpose. Phryne marveled at the pop-up tent with its flexible poles, and was more than pleased to toast bread on sticks and eat it with tinned beans, in lieu of more soul-searching. But, as dusk gave way to night, Thursday fixed her with an intent look across the campfire.

“Let’s leave backstory alone for the moment. Do you recall what your case previous to this one was?”

“Yes, it was a case involving a bookshop, a delectable young man named Simon Abrahams, a valuable chemical formula, and poison hidden in a bookbinding,” Miss Fisher began eagerly, but caught herself short. “But some things seem wrong about it.”

“Well,” said Agent Next, pulling a notebook from her pocket and consulting it, “according to my notes, a man named Yossi Stein discovered a formula for artificial rubber, which was concealed in the bookshop, and he and Abrahams’ father were going to go into business together. Abrahams was your lover for a short time before you sent him off. That sounds like it matches what you’re remembering.”

“Yes, but,” Phryne paused. “that might not be not right. Yossi died, I think. And Abrahams was in love with the bookseller, but already had a wife.” Next’s face registered shock. She paged silently through her notebook, lingering carefully on one page, then another, as Phryne wracked her brain. “I feel like I’m remembering it two ways at once.” Miss Fisher groaned and put her head between her knees, but the dizzying sensation stayed away. Tentatively, she sat back up and thought harder. “I definitely have the memory of it happening the way you say, but I also feel like it could have happened the other way.” Next watched her closely. The older woman’s face was sharply focused, flickering in and out of the shadows of firelight. “It could be more of the alternative timeline, couldn’t it?”

“It could,” Next said quietly. “Stranger things than someone taking a different lover have happened when time gets altered by an outside party.” Something about Agent Next’s voice pulled Phryne up short. The woman wasn’t exaggerating when she said she had experience with this sort of thing. That statement, so quiet, so simple – there was personal history behind it.

“Tell me,” she demanded. She fixed her green gimlet stare on the brunette.

“I was a soldier,” Agent Next began. “I met Landen on the front lines, and he was there when my brother died. It was... devastating. We didn’t speak for years. When we reconnected, I decided not to let go of him again. A few months later, time was changed, and the world became as though he – we – never existed.” Next shivered, buried in the memory. “I fought through Hades to get him back.” Her posture stiffened, and she met Phryne’s fixed look with a steely one of her own. “His little sister and brothers too.”

“So you found Landen again?”

“I did,” Next’s mouth softened into a slightly sappy smile for an instant. “We are an absurdly happy slightly-retired couple who live in Swindon with our pet dodo, and the children visit when they aren’t on their own adventures.” Phryne nodded.

“Spoils of war, so to speak,” she said with a wry smile.

“You could say that,” Next replied philosophically. “You’ve been through a war yourself, and you’re enjoying your own spoils.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Phryne answered, considering. The fire sizzled in the quiet, and Next pulled out a marshmallow and began to toast it, giving Miss Fisher time to think. “I have 221B on the Esplanade, I have Dot and Dr. MacMillan as friends, I have my lovely Hispano-Suiza,” she paused meditatively.

“You have your lovers, and Lin Chung,” Next contributed. “You two seem quite fond of each other, at least, as close as you can be within your context and lack of interest in matrimony.”

“But you see,” Miss Fisher broke in, "there's something - someone - missing. I think it's Jack.” Agent Next, clearly, did not see. She toasted her marshmallow methodically as she chose her words.

“Robinson? The deeply-unmemorable, happily married D.I. that supervises Dot’s fiancé and is fond of flowers? There’s not much in the text of your books to support you being close to him. Though he dies heroically in chapter 18, bringing down the Razor Boys’ leaders, Murrich and Hoyt, which you find affecting.”

“It's more than that. Some part of my memory is sure that Jack is more than a standard 'good cop'. That he has more depth than just as a law-abiding foil who's there to threaten me with breaking and entering when I obtain key evidence without perfect lawfulness.”

“You’re curious about him,” Next nodded. “And curiosity drives you just as much as anything else.” She nodded decisively, though it was ambiguous whether it was at Miss Fisher’s admission or at the state of her marshmallow. “It’s entirely possible that the force of that curiosity, combined with the force of your own personality, is suggesting new directions for the narrative, which might bethe cause of your memory loss. Though I don't think that's the reason you ran out of fuel.” She puffed on the marshmallow, then devoured it whole and began toasting another one, still nonchalant about the fact that reality was apparently at the mercy of the Lady Detective crouching on a camp stool across from her. Phryne allowed herself a small, smug smile. She was used to making things happen, but changing time itself might be a new frontier of stubborn willfulness. Agent Next was slightly less amused. “We can apply for an internal plot adjustment, if that’s what you’d like, but I can’t guarantee anything. You would be changing a lot of characters’ lives quite thoroughly, and that’s not something Text Grand Central appreciates.” Thursday’s face was wry. Apparently, she’d had some experience with that adventure too.

“If these double memories I’m having are any indication, somebody else is already making changes…” Miss Fisher began, but before she could elaborate, the color drained from Agent Next’s face, who interrupted her with a hiss.

“Get down. Now.”


	3. Chapter 3

In a flash, Phryne was on the ground and upending their water onto the campfire. Thursday dropped into a tactical crouch, produced a gun from a concealed holster, and started scanning the trees with the air of someone who knew exactly what she was looking for. Whatever she saw or sensed, she didn’t like. Fixing an iron grip on the lady detective’s wrist, Next dragged her away from the campsite, keeping them in the reedy overgrowth on the banks of the river. When they had traveled a few hundred breathless yards, Next let Phryne rest while she took stock. A few moments later, there was a series of pops – _pak pak pak!_ \- which Miss Fisher belatedly recognized as muted gunshots.

“Razor Boys?” She asked, already suspecting the answer was no.

“I doubt it. We’re between chapters, and miles from Sydney to boot. Also, those bullets were silenced, which isn’t a thing in the Roaring Twenties.” She cocked her ear, and over the wash of the river, the two heard the voices of their mystery assailants.

“Anything?” There was the sound of shattering glass, and someone crunching through it.

“Not so much as a scrap of silk. Either she burned up, crawled away into the bush, or she’s in the river.”

“All right. Miles, Dunlap and Kingston, keep searching. Jack Robinson’s got to shave before his date down in that cistern.” An eerie chuckle of laughter was followed by the noise of an engine starting, as whoever was speaking rode away on what sounded like a motorcycle.

After a few of the longest minutes Phryne had ever lived through, the three mysterious people had disappeared far enough into the woods that she felt safe enough to breathe again. She hated feeling so vulnerable. Agent Next had brought her camp bag along, and was rummaging in it to a physical depth that was not quite possible. “Ah, here we are.” She produced a pistol and handed it to Miss Fisher. “Loaded with Eraserheads. I’d prefer we use them sparingly though – those don’t discriminate between characters and any other text. I don’t want to do permanent damage to anything canon, but I don’t think these folks are local.”

"I agree,” Miss Fisher murmured. “Somebody from your side of things?” She ran her hands along the strange pistol, familiarizing herself with the weight and heft.

“Possible.” Next was still scanning where they had run from, watching a pair of the barely-visible dark figures moving around the wreckage of Rigel. They had apparently blasted the cockpit, in case Phryne was still inside of it. “Could be text vandals, or a rogue crossover from the Thriller genre.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“No,” murmured Agent Next. “No, I don’t. Modern weapons, and they shot up your plane immediately. They were out to do damage to the narrative and you.”

Miss Fisher nodded, her expression hardening. She had slept, eaten, sorted a few things out in her head, and was generally ready for action. Rigel's loss was a blow, but she could buy another plane. As long as she kept her mind off of all the complicated bits of her history, the dizziness was staying away. The only point where her equilibrium truly vanished was when she wondered just how many chapters were left between here and finding Jack Robinson’s body down in a Sydney cistern with its throat and wrists slashed yet again. _That is not going to happen, Jack,_ she thought to herself. Not if she had a chance to stop it. Agent Next holstered her weapon. “We’re going to need to jump to another narrative gap. Can you think of anyplace we can hide out?”

“I attend a nicely-crowded fancy-dress party chapter 13.”

“No good,” Next said. “If you’re already there, the narrative is going to go haywire trying to decide which Phryne to follow along, and we run the risk of destroying earlier parts of the book.”

“The Epigraph and opening quote?”

“Too sparse for the two of us.”

"I know,” she said decisively. “Chapter four. There’s a long stretch where Dot is trying to find her sister, who’s disappeared into the Sydney underbelly, while I’m out lunching with James Clarence and finding out more about the drug trade.” Next nodded.

“Let’s go.”

\---

One quick bookjump later, they watched Dot venture out of the Arbleton Grand, then made their way upstairs to the suite Phryne had booked. Both women immediately set about pillaging Phryne’s luggage for supplies to replace what had been left at the campsite. Phryne found her own pistol and loaded it with more Eraserheads, then changed out of her flying togs and into loose dark trousers and a muted jade blouse with matching coat. Thursday made careful notes of what had happened so far, then went to place a phone call to the Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire while Miss Fisher brushed her hair and redid her makeup. But as she began putting the suite back in order for Dot’s return, Thursday returned to the room with a severe look on her face.

“They’ve cut the outgoing lines, and this book doesn’t support mobile footnoterphone,” she said. “Whoever it is that we saw at the campsite, they’re making damn sure I don’t get any reinforcements in here.” She ground an impotent fist into the doorframe. "We're on our own until one of my co-workers notices I've missed a check-in."

"I think they've been in here too," Phryne added. "A lot of my clothing is missing, and some of the nicer jewelry too."

"Could have been a covert edit to try and slow you down," Thursday said. "Knock you off your game, if you don't have your usual descriptions." That warranted an eyeroll from Phryne. As if she'd be slowed down because her sapphires were missing!

“So, who do you think they’re after then,” Phryne asked, aggravation and concern warring in her eyes. “You or me?”

“I still can’t say,” Thursday said. “But if it's you we need to hurry, and if it's me, we need to get those footnoterphone conduits back up. Also, what’s the earliest that you encounter D.I. Robinson?”

“I all but trip over him as he waits incognito on a street corner, watching a drug deal between ‘Sharkbait’ Kennedy and James go down at the midpoint of chapter four. Why?”

“Because the bellman passed me a note from him in the lobby.” Next’s face was grim. “He must have pegged me as Jurisfiction.” She held out a square of notepaper to Miss Fisher, who could just read: ‘Hon. P. F.’ scrawled on it in Jack’s distinctively-awful handwriting. Phryne’s heart sunk into her shoes.

It read: ‘Miss Fisher. Keep to the plot. RB is changing things. Go to the antiques shop in 14. ‘Every time serves for the matter that is then born in't. /But small to greater matters must give way.’ Robinson.’

“The antiques shop?” Next consulted her notes. “But you’re supposed to go there in chapter sixteen to discover him missing. That’s how the plot advances.” She looked up worriedly at Phryne. “And what does he mean, small to greater matters must give way?”

“It’s from Antony and Cleopatra; he quotes Shakespeare all the time,” Phryne replied. Her heart had fallen out of her shoes now and was somewhere in the subbasement. “I think he’s telling me that whoever is doing this – scrambling my backstory – is also interfering other places, betting Jack’s life against everyone else’s existence in the book, in hopes that I’ll ruin the narrative to rescue him. Everybody in here knows I hate the ending, but if someone changes it, so that Jack doesn’t even get his moment of heroism…”

“Tell me everything you know about Hoyt and Murrich,” Agent Next demanded. “They’re already antagonists, is there some reason they’d decide to change the narrative further? Do they have outside connections that would supply them with modern weapons?” As she spoke, she was repacking her camp bag and slinging it across her shoulders, backpack-style.

“Adrian Hoyt’s an archaeology student,” Miss Fisher began, refolding Jack’s note and stowing it tenderly in her green-embroidered handbag. “In-book, he’s the more minor guard dog to Gabriel Murrich’s vaguely-supernatural Egyptian-cult leader. He’s young, maybe twenty-seven, but brilliant, charismatic, and good-looking in a languid sort of way. He does some of the drugs he sells, so he gets quite grandiose in the end.” She tucked Thursday’s spare pistol into the bag next to the note as she spoke. “Murrich is older, dark and mysterious, obsessed with Egypt, and made the money for his drug empire by selling smuggled antiques.” She added her lighter and a case of gaspers to the bag as well. “He plays the part well – has his teeth filed down like a cat’s, and does some magical chanting here and there.”

“And when they aren’t on the page?”

“Murrich isn’t too bad, but Hoyt gives Dot the screaming meemies, and I'm inclined to agree with her,” Phryne answered with a shudder. “He’s always pushing for more scenes of blood and gore, even though I’ve overruled him. There was one time through he wanted to have severed hands holding candles as decorations, and he was mutilating Generics to do it. This is a light mystery series, not some Gothic novel or _Titus Andronicus_. And he’s jealous of Murrich’s supernatural aura. Plus, he’s always trying to join the ranks of my lovers, even though I have a firm policy in not dabbling with the criminals. He’s the one who escapes at the end when Murrich is jailed, and he’s used that to position himself as a sequel hook.”

“That doesn’t sound like a stable individual, but not necessarily somebody who would hire a hit squad from outside. This smells fishy.” Next clapped her notebook shut. “Maybe we can catch Robinson before he heads to your street corner meeting.” But it was not to be. By the time they had made it downstairs, found a cab, and wended their way downtown at the moderate pace of thirty miles an hour, the traffic at the restaurant corner had jammed to a crawl.

“What is this?” Phryne beat her hands against the backseat, and the Generic in the driver’s seat turned around.

“Easy on the taxi, Miss.” He winked, and Phryne was struck with a jolt of recognition. It had taken her rather too long, but she’d been distracted by the problem at hand. Plus, he was missing his partner in both crime and Communism.

“Bert? What are you doing here?” The short man tipped his battered cap in acknowledgment.

“Cec is off choosing table linens with Alice, so I thought I’d pick up a couple of extra shifts.”

“Is the traffic always this bad?” Thursday was impatient, and Bert was quick to notice.

“Something up ahead, Ma’am. Market day, would be my wager.” Next, instincts clanging in her head, bolted from the cab with a severe cast to her expression.

“I’m not liking this. Bert, see if you can get a bead on where Inspector Robinson turns up next in the text. We might be able to jump ahead and beat whoever it is who’s after him to the punch. Phryne, if you can get a message to Dot, see if she can prolong her search for her sister a little, maybe a quarter-chapter. We can’t have the narrative bounce back to you before I figure out what’s going on. Once you’ve done that, meet me at the antiques store two chapters early.” With that, she charged into the crowd, throwing elbows to get through the gawking Generics. Ahead, she could see a mid-brown man in a plain coat, brown fedora pulled down over his eyes, watching Sharkbait and James as the stand-in Phryne, clad in wispy purple and a wide straw hat, prepared to leave the restaurant. When he spotted Thursday, his eyes widened. But before he could say a word, there was an enormous crash. A runaway cart horse, blood streaming from a deep cut in its flank, careered through the square, scattering pedestrians left and right. Sharkbait, James, Phryne-2, and all of the supporting characters dove away as it shattered its cart on a nearby lamppost, hurling debris into the shocked and screaming crowd. The horse let out a terrified whinny, kicked up its hooves into a storefront window, and galloped down an alley, leaving destruction in its wake. Only Thursday, who had suspected something amiss, was able to notice the dark figures who dragged a bag over Robinson’s head, clubbed him, and slung him into the sidecar of a black and silver Harley-Davidson motorcycle. They sped away, dodging between blocked cars and incapacitated pedestrians, leaving only a cloud of exhaust behind them. Thursday swore.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in posting. I've been working as quickly as I can, but it became apparent I really needed a CSS skin, so I had to take a timeout to learn how to do that.

Thursday’s first instinct was to race after the motorcycle, waving her gun and impotently shouting ‘Stop!’ as the slumped form of Jack Robinson receded into the distance. But she was far too seasoned an agent to give in to the trope. Instead, she scrambled through the crowd that was slowly getting back to its collective feet, whispered a quick sentence into Sharkbait Kennedy’s ear, and ducked into a nearby doorway. The gangster looked down at James, who was preparing to restart the dialogue, and towered intimidatingly over the younger man.

## “Just what do you think you’re doing, eh kid? Trying to bring cops down on me? I saw that policeman on the corner just now! Lucky I don’t work alone, so off he goes.”

James’ gaze flickered to where Robinson was supposed to be standing. Comprehension lit in his eyes as he realized what Kennedy was doing. They were going to have to cover for Robinson’s absence with a little sleight-of-dialog.

## “Oh, a- a- cop you say, no, no that’s nothing to do with me. I'm not, that is...” The younger man ran hands gone white with shock through his curls nervously, shifting from foot to foot as the tanned and scarred wharfie in the green neckerchief snarled at him. Sharkbait wrapped his meaty hands around the lapels of James’s coat, dragging Clarence up in the air and exposing an Eye of Horus tattoo on his wrist. James began whimpering feeble denials that he would ever -er, that is, never do something like that, everybody knew the Sydney cops didn’t care about Sharkbait’s business. 

Phryne-2 leapt forward too, realizing what needed to happen.

##  "We know you're the bottom rung Sharkbait." Miss Fisher moved her stole so the gleam of her pistol flashed in the afternoon sunlight. "Why don't you give us a hint about who you report to, and we'll leave you alone to peddle whatever you like." Sharkbait stopped short at the sight of the gun. A sheila with some oomph behind her, fancy for dope notwithstanding. He took a moment to think, and Miss Fisher could all but smell the rubber burning as he did so. 

_Well played, you three_ Thursday thought. From that point, it would be easy to lead Sharkbait into explaining that he dropped half his shipments at the Blue Oyster, his boss was Hoyt, and that Phryne-2 was going to need to meet with him at his class at the museum as the next link in the chain. Jack would have been able to give her more, but this would serve. Confident the scene was salvaged, Thursday prepared to bookjump to the antiques store, but was stopped by a low call from a nearby window.

“Agent, over here.” Her head whipped around like a top on a string. She had an inkling as to whom that voice and scent of aftershave belonged. Instantly, she was over the rubbish bin and climbing through the window. She pulled out her badge, but kept her hand on her gun just in case.

“Thursday Next, Jurisfiction. Detective Robinson?” From the shadows, a man stepped forward. He was, as the text said, mid-brown and unremarkable. Middling height, middling weight, brownish-blondish hair that was straight, but with a curl to it, pale hazel eyes that could be almost any color in the right light. He had on a sober grey suit, but no hat or coat. Sudden understanding dawned. “They got a Generic, didn’t they,” Agent Next marveled, clipping her badge back on her belt.

“I realized a long time ago,” Robinson said mildly, putting his hand out to shake hers, “that staying non-descript made me much better at my job. I gave a flower-seller my outerwear and a shilling to stand on that corner. Nobody puts too much observational energy towards the good cop in a detective story.” A rueful smile broke across his face, and Next could see a faint hint of high cheekbones. “That being said, it’s been hellish on Phryne every time she has to go identify my body, since Rosie doesn’t appear in this story except at the end, at my funeral, and Miss Fisher is the only other person who can pick me out of a crowd.” No wonder Miss Fisher was leaping at the opportunity to save him, Thursday mused. Watching a good man die over and over, it would take it out of any character, especially one as effervescent as Miss Fisher. She was a woman born for triumphing over villians.

“Do you know who tried to kidnap you? They definitely aren’t from within the narrative.” Robinson shook his head.

“You noticed the Harley too. No, up until a few minutes ago, I thought it was Murrich pushing for more space in the narrative by doing something more drastic. He resents that he takes second-place to Hoyt when Hoyt is only a lackey. And lately, he’s been verging on pure supernatural when he starts collecting his cultists around him. But there’s no way that was him. He’s after a resurrection of the old Egyptian gods; he wouldn’t be using anachronistic technology to get his way. If nothing else, he takes his characterization very seriously.”

“Miss Fisher was thinking it might be Hoyt, trying to use your relationship with her as leverage to get more gore and sex into the story.” Robinson’s face gave another wry twist.

“He thinks her appetites mean she has no standards, despite a number of rather… vehement rebuffs to the contrary. Once, I had to shoot him when he followed her home and tried to break into her house. That was when they started killing me before she arrived, rather than allowing me to be rescued.” The detective was walking as he spoke, checking through the windows as the scene outside dispersed. “She’s unusual for a woman in this day and age, but she still has an ethical code. I respect her a great deal for that. And she’s quite brilliant, in her own flighty way.” He paused at the window again, and a look of satisfaction crossed his face. “Sharkbait and James Clarence have been hauled away for disturbing the peace, and Phryne-2 is heading back to the hotel to meet up with Dot. You know the meeting point?”

“The antiques shop, two chapters early,” Agent Next replied.

“Shoot for paragraph four,” said the detective, politely offering his arm to Thursday. “There’s a passing street description we can use.”

Kemble Street was broad and lined with cars parked in neat parallel lines. Tall willow bottlebrush trees alternated with lampposts that arched over the sidewalks leading down to the beach, which hushed and washed quietly in the moonlight. It was a still night, disturbed only by the buzz of the insects and the occasional halloo from the beach. Jack and Thursday strolled arm-in-arm along the fenced properties until the came to a cross-street that led away from the main boulevard and toward a less civilized part of the city. A few buildings down, they came upon the Exotic Antiques Buy & Sell shop. But as they approached, Jack staggered and slumped dizzily onto the curb.

“What’s the matter?” Thursday asked.

“I’m… I’m not sure.” He swallowed hard and dragged his hands through his hair. “Maybe it’s because I’m here too early?” He turned his light eyes toward Thursday, seeking reassurance, but she only frowned.

“I don’t think it’s that. I think we’re dealing with the same alternate timeline issues that yanked Miss Fisher out of context earlier. Do you have any new memories, or do things feel changed?” She helped him to his feet and let him lean on her until he could stand up straight.

“No,” he replied, but then caught himself. “Maybe? I feel like maybe my relationship with the Chief Commissioner is a little more complicated than it used to be. It’s hard to say.”

Thursday pushed open the door to the shop and led him inside as he spoke. The lock bore evidence of Miss Fisher's picks, so Thursday knew she had already arrived. Phryne, Bert, Sharkbait and James were all there waiting for them, perched on crates and boxes from the smuggled goods. A few taxidermy specimens hung from the walls, glass eyes lolling, while all around, dust from ancient graves hovered and settled in sneeze-inducing clouds. To one side, racks of spare clothes were ordered by chapter, so that nobody would need to scramble for a cult hood or woven sandals when the time came. The place was a veritable prop room for the rest of the story. It was a good place for a secret meeting.

“Jack!” Phryne sprang up from her pile of rolled exotic rugs and grabbed Robinson’s hand in a crushing grip. “Oh, thank goodness, Bert saw you get bagged, we thought we were too late.”

“No, they bagged my hat on Mr. Flowers.” A warm smile suffused Phryne’s face. Thursday noticed a blush creeping up the backs of Jack's ears, but politely ignored it.

“Clever policeman.” Phryne said affectionately, before turning to Thursday. “Dot is helping Phryne-2 along with the dinner at the Blue Oyster, but I’m going to need to step into her place when it comes to the actual detecting of the drug distribution in the kitchen. There are so many comings and goings that I’ve got a whole boatload of notes, but I don’t think she’ll be able to keep it together.” Agent Next nodded.

“Then we need to pool our knowledge right now.” Next went first, mentioning the modern motorcycle, the silenced pistols and the alternative timeline events. Jack added that he’d seen two women in odd clothing that could have been from the same group hanging around one of the brothels, including one with the name Dunlap, the same name Miss Fisher and Agent Next had heard. Sharkbait and James had both noticed strange happenings too, including Murrich using apparently mystical hypnotic influence to lure James and another woman into the cultish gang.

“I saw them same two women what Robbo spotted. They had wristbands, and were trying to talk the tarts into dressing classy and picking names for ‘emselves.” Sharkbait said.

“Doing good works?” Thursday suggested.

“Nah, one of the tarts told ‘em to take their names and their fine clothes and go whistle. The brown-haired sheila got all offended and slugged her, told her a black eye could make her more interesting too.” Sharkbait’s face grew grim. “I shoulda waded in, but I don’t hit women. They ran off when they saw me anyway.”

“Do you remember what the wristband looked like?” Thursday pressed him.

“I have one, actually,” James said, reedy voice surprising them all. He fished a bracelet of green braided cord out of his pocket and tossed it onto a French tea table. Thursday snatched it up. “The man who drugs me at the cult meeting dropped it.”

“This is paracord,” she explained. “It’s designed to be a multipurpose survival tool. And this label…” She flipped it over and caught her breath in shock. “It’s the MSEC. Mary-Sue Erasure Collective.”


	5. Chapter 5

Thursday’s proclamation was met with incomprehension. Only Miss Fisher gave a sharp inhale, reaching for the armband with a shaky hand. “They don’t think – they wouldn’t – do I?” She trailed off, red lips trembling with fury and shock. She whirled away suddenly, and Bert gave Thursday a questioning look.

“It’s a paraliterary organization dedicated to the eradication of too-perfect characters from books,” Next explained. “Some of the more mainstream adherents do good work, bringing new dimensions and foibles to characters that lack depth with a few nuanced suggestions. The Erasure Collective takes a more… brutal approach, thinking that tragedy is the only good way to balance a character with too many strengths.”

"Wot, like, angst it up?" Sharkbait said, nonplussed. "Nothin' wrong wit a good sad story."

"More like, murder anyone with a name, and desecrate the corpses of their dead relatives to boot until the protagonist stops being talented. Supposedly George R.R. Martin has one as a consultant."

“And you think they’re after Miss Fisher?” Bert stubbed out his cigarette in a tarnished silver gravy boat. “Where do they get off, buncha lunatics? Just because she has nice stuff and doesn’t get th’ vapors when things go side-end up.”

“It would make sense,” said Jack. “If they’re trying to force her into despair to break her moral code and miss key clues, it would explain Hoyt and Murrich’s new abilities. And Hoyt would be on board, given his current fixation.” He turned to Phryne, but she was pacing the length of the shop with a slightly frantic look in her eyes. “Miss Fisher?”

“I’m alright, I’m fine, thank you. I need to go now, Dot will be wondering where I’ve gotten to, and Phryne-2 needs me at the Blue Oyster.” And with a shake of her black hair, she hurried out the door to bookjump back to the kitchen scene.

“I’ll go after her,” Bert offered, but James shook his head.

“Better me,” said the younger man. He grabbed a soft cap that had been hanging on a peg outside Hoyt’s office and dragged it over his curls. “I’m native to this book, I’ll blend in better as a tradesman. You help Agent Next figure out how to get these scumbuckets out of our book.” Bert clapped him on the shoulder, pressing the keys to the cab into James’ hand.

“Go to the side door, she’ll need to leave through there to follow the drug trail,” he said. James nodded. Moments later, the sound of the cab starting rumbled through the shop. Sharkbait puffed a long breath and flopped down onto a spindly Egyptian stool, which cracked ominously under his broad weight.

“Can someone explain wot’s got in her bonnet then? She ain't in danger of tootling off to Murderville like we uns' are.” He looked from Bert to Jack, but it was Thursday who gave an uncomfortable sigh before beginning to explain.

“Mary-Sueism is an easy insult to level at a main character, but it can also be quite a devastating condition. Over-powered protagonists, ones that everything comes easy to – they become labeled as vanity projects and get abandoned. Or, once the scent of it gets caught, readers wind up wasting all their time defending or skewering the plots, and readership drops off.”

Jack chimed in: “Miss Fisher is especially susceptible to the charge, since she’s a detective. She’s meant to notice things others don’t, think differently than the average character. It sets her up to be smarter, prettier, richer, better than everyone else, and, well…”

“And some people are just jealous!” Bert broke in loyally. “Miss Fisher is a main character, and I’m a just red-ragger secondary, alright yeah. But she also noticed me n’ Cec out of a hundred cabbies that showed up that first day for a part. Cottoned our names, could tell us apart, figured out Cec loved animals by some hair on his coat, gave us a turn at the perspective in the third chapter. Not every private Dick would bother with that, now would he?” He lit another cigarette and puffed angrily. Thursday was privately glad very few Bookpeople had a sense of smell. It was going to reek of tobacco in the shop for at least a chapter.

“Be that as it may, the MSEC doesn’t agree. They have an especial tendency to home in on talented characters and try to counteract them with a lot of painful narrative events. That’s why they were trying to kidnap, and probably ultimately, kill Jack on page. To make Miss Fisher more tragic, and therefore, in their eyes, a better character.”

“Thas garbage!” Kennedy snapped. “Utter balloon juice. How do we give them the boot? Hoyt is bad enough; I don’t want the whole story turning inta Jude the Obscure.” Jack and Bert looked at the gangster in surprise. Sharkbait shrugged. “She lent me a copy for reading while I’m locked up in the pokey. ‘S a good book, but blinkin’ depressing.”

“I’m not sure how we get rid of the MSEC,” Thursday replied. “But we’ll have to think of something quickly. Who knows what they’ll try once they realize they have Mr. Flowers and not Jack.”

“We do have one advantage though,” Jack said, as he found himself a new jacket and hat from among the boxes. “They don’t know about you, Agent Next.”

\---

## Miss Fisher was, though she hated to admit it, more than a little distracted. She tried to convince herself it was morely because of James Clarence being impersonated – imprisoned. But if she where – we’re – were honest with herself, it was because…

“I’m sorry Dot, I need to jump back to the start of the paragraph again,” Phryne-2 murmured. “That was really terrible.”

“Not to worry, Miss,” Dot replied smoothly. “You’re doing just fine.”

“Dot, I know when I’m making usage errors. This is too important to do half-heartedly.” Phryne-2’s fingers played nervously with the tips of her silvery gloves, but Dot’s eyes were kind and unworried.

“Just keep going. I’m right here, and Miss Fisher left her notes under the napkin. And she’ll be here soon to do the clue-finding in the kitchen.” Phryne-2 still looked as if she’d like to try the internal monologue one more time, but they were beginning to lose the track. Discreetly, Dot flagged the head waiter.

## “Excuse me,” she said, “but could we get some new lemon slices for the water? There are seeds in these.” The older man looked down at the plate of perfectly seedless lemon slices arrayed in a floral pattern, and nodded in acknowledgement. 

It was the cue Phryne-2 was supposed to deliver, but when he looked at the young woman who was now anxiously tinkering with her fork by winding the napkin through its tines, he felt it would be better to keep things moving.

## “Of course, ladies, I’d be happy to help you in any way I can.” Password delivered, the man gave them an indulgent smile. Ladies would have their vices.

Caleb took up the plate in one coppery-brown hand and glided away toward the kitchen, hoping Phryne-2 would get settled down. He ran his free hand through his graying hair, trying to soothe his nerves. They had a mystery to put on. As he wafted toward the kitchen though, he spotted another black cap of hair and shimmering fillet of diamonds, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“How’s she doing, Caleb? You and Dot keeping things afloat?” Miss Fisher inquired. She looked anxious as well, where usually she had nerves of tempered steel. Caleb's sense of unease was growing stronger.

“Typos here and there, and she had to redo a few paragraphs, but generally well,” he replied gallantly. No use in mentioning the skipped wardrobe section, which had left her wearing silk trousers, elbow-length gloves, a plain blouse, and a diamond hairband inside a fine restaurant, or the way she had accidentally made it out that one of the other guests had eaten her partner’s hat instead of her own meal via a misplaced a modifier. “Shall I swap you in at the kitchen door, or do you want to jump ahead and we’ll not force her to work her way through to dessert as well?”

“Let’s give her through dinner,” Miss Fisher replied. She was looking a little grey in the face, so Caleb didn’t press, even though he would have preferred it otherwise. He hoped that Phryne-2 wouldn’t accidentally give one of his coworkers three hands.

Phryne slumped in the cloakroom as she waited for her cue to slip into the kitchen between paragraphs. Her mind was a scattered mess, and there was a metallic taste in her mouth that she was trying to ignore. If these MSEC people were here to make her less confident, less happy, less herself, by dousing everyone in the book in pain and tragedy, what would she even be able to do about it? Getting angry and stopping them might work within the text, but they clearly had some sort of inroad to her backstory that incapacitated her every time they made a change. And she most certainly did not have it in her to give them what they wanted. She was the Hon. Phryne Fisher. And even if they destroyed her plane, stole her clothes, stranded her in the middle of nowhere, and attacked the characters she was in charge of protecting, she was not going to give anyone the satisfaction of drooping on her stem like a daisy with no water just because they felt she was too good at being herself. She stiffened her shoulders. This was her book, and she was going to keep it on track, no matter what. The resolution lifted her head, and she stalked to the kitchen door to wait for Phryne-2 to make the swap. They weren’t going to take her down that easily.

## Miss Fisher laid her napkin down in her lap, her decision made. If drugs were being distributed here in the restaurant, then they were coming from somewhere in the back. She needed to get into that kitchen, and the lovely Caleb was going to help her. But as she turned to signal to him, her breath caught in her throat. What was Adrian Hoyt doing in the Blue Oyster?


	6. Chapter 6

“Alright, first things first,” Agent Next said. “We need reinforcements, we need to bring the footnoterphone conduits back online, we need to figure out if MSEC is messing around in Backstory, and we need to keep you, Robinson, out of danger while we do it.”

She looked at the three men expectantly.

“I can get to the footnoterphone conduits,” Bert volunteered. “There’s a link in Miss Fisher’s library between her books and the Sayers novels. She and that Wimsey bloke like to meet for drinks between chapters and compare racing stories. And if I can’t get there, Cec, Janey or Ruthie might be able to do it.” Agent Next nodded.

“Sharkbait and I can marshal the rest of the characters,” Robinson replied. “If MSEC is concentrating on my death, they’re going to be congregating in sixteen.” He rummaged in another trunk and found a spare service revolver, which he holstered opposite his usual weapon. “But we’re going to need to stage our ouster at the same time as you’re taking them out of Backstory, or else they’ll just write themselves back in again.” Sharkbait began digging through the trunk as well.

“Gonna need weapons for the rest of the Generics,” he said. “Gotta help for me, Agent?” She obliged with a bag from within her camp bag, a gigantic flowered handbag with a leather strap. Sharkbait took a long look at it, shrugged, and began dumping razors, daggers, and the odd pistol into it.

“Right,” Next said decidedly. She flipped through her ever-present notebook again. “We’re going to need to split up. The link for Backstory is strongest in chapter five, but the only place 221b appears is chapter twenty, after the funeral. You’re going to need to be very careful, Bert. That will be where the most narrative flex is happening, and you’re going to run the risk of being written right out of existence.” She looked up at Sharkbait and Robinson. “Sharkbait, you stick to Jack here like glue, you understand me? Anyone with that paracord comes within a paragraph of you, you sling him over your shoulder and bookjump to the jail. With any luck, they’ll think you’re doing their dirty work and buy us some time.”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” the wharfie replied. He gave Thursday a salute and an uncomfortably toothy smile. She supposed that was where he’d gotten the nickname from. “C’mon Robbo, we’ve got wharfies, commies, gangsters and whores to recruit. How’s your rabble-rousing?”

He hoisted the handbag off the floor, no mean feat when it contained an entire police force's worth of weapons.

“It’s called leadership, Kennedy,” Robinson said with a long-suffering sigh. "And can we keep the insubordination to a minimum? This is already precarious." Thursday could see a faint smile playing on his lips though. No wonder he and Miss Fisher got along.

“Just stay out of chapter eighteen,” she admonished as the two men disappeared out the door. Bert followed closely behind, shoulders and jaw set like he was going over the top. Time for Thursday to do the same. One quick bookjump and a chapter exit later, and she was standing in front of the Storycode engine for _The Yarra Razors_ , peering around it to look at the unpublished pages labeled Backstory that were wired up to the book proper. But she wasn’t alone in the smoke and steam. Standing guard at the slim stack of writing were a trio of green-braceleted, black-clad goons, guarding the back of someone typing furiously. Over the clanks and pops of the straining engine and the hiss of firing pistons, Thursday could just hear the skittering of keys and someone swearing.

“Ok, no, that’s not doing it. Can anyone give me a more stable injection command than that? --- look, I’m sorry, but her backstory’s more robust than we anticipated. A lot of these tiny tweaks that you seemed to think would be enough to bring this thing around are just being overwritten or flat-out bypassed. --- No, I don’t think you could do a better job, you’re too busy roaring around on that motorcycle, and I’m not interested in super-powering the thing just so you can feel like Jane Bond.” More typing. “Look, I already killed the sister off more dramatically than diphtheria. If you don’t think ‘murdered by uncaught serial killer’ is enough, then come up with something better.” All but holding her breath, Thursday inched forward. If she was going to have any chance at drawing them off, she was going to need to get closer. The typing continued; the woman was clearly a dab hand at this kind of thing. “Alexandra -, no, no, listen to me, I do not care. If you’re getting cold feet, then jump out and go work on something Twilight related. Otherwise – I… No. Otherwise, you tell Miles he needs to find Robinson. That Generic has already disappeared, so we need the Inspector for real. He dies this time. He dies early, he dies unwillingly, and he stays dead. And Miss Fisher is not brazening her way out of feeling it either.” Thursday did some quick math in her head. She’d heard three names, and a fourth speaker, presumably this Alexandra person, at the campsite. Add those four together with three heavies and a rogue editrix, and she was dealing with a minimum of eight MSEC revolutionaries trying to bring the book into line with their vision. She ran a finger down her pistol. Eight shots per clip. Four clips. Phryne with fourteen loaded and two spares.

“You don’t have enough bullets for that. Think again.” A click came from behind her: the sound of a gun being cocked.

\---

## Miss Fisher stood resolutely. Whatever distraction might be thrown her way, she was going to get into that kitchen. She lifted a charming smile to Caleb, and offered her hand to him. “I would love to be able to give my compliments to the chef directly, Mr. Fox. Could you take me to him?” Normally a bastion of protocol, Caleb nodded, his eyes darting worriedly towards Hoyt, who was advancing to Miss Fisher’s table. “Shall we?” Together, they proceeded to the kitchen door apace. Hoyt, an unusual green light emanating from his form, drifted closer, and patrons began to abandon their tables as he moved through the room. 

Phryne met Phryne-2 and Caleb at the door. “What is it, what’s gone wrong?”

“It’s Hoyt,” Caleb hissed. “He’s here. He wants something and he’s glowing like a space alien. I can try to throw him out, and I can threaten him with the police, but do you have any better ideas?” Miss Fisher looked at her double, and gave a wicked grin.

“Well, if he’s going to muck around with the wrong genre, maybe we should give him his own taste of the supernatural?”

## As Hoyt approached the swinging doors to the kitchen, he paused to listen. The noises of cooking and dishwashing had stopped, and there was an eerie silence that he found pleasing. The only sound remaining was the click of high heels. “Miss Fisher, do come out; I can hear you hoping I’ll go away,” he called. “I’m here to bargain.”

## “Hello Adrian,” came a voice, silky and unconcerned. “I wasn’t expecting to meet you quite yet. As far as I was aware, you were off at your university.” The kitchen doors swung open inward, and Miss Fisher advanced, diamonds gleaming against her black hair, and the gold of her pistol glinting in the candlelight. “Was there something pressing you needed to speak with me about?” He gave a pleased smile and stepped forward, but before he could speak, there was a second noise that drew his attention.

## “Yes, Adrian, what was it you needed?” A second figure appeared in the door behind him, identical diamonds in her hair, identical pistol in her hand. “I’m afraid if you’ve come to intimidate me out of investigating here, you’re going to have to do better than a sodium light concealed under a billowing cloak.” Hoyt gaped. _Two of them? But how?_ “Now, why don’t you turn that silly thing off, let me finish up here, and we can have a chat tomorrow, say, ten? At your lecture. I'll even explain my little magic trick here. I do warn you though, one of our two pistols is loaded with mere bullets, but the other…” she paused and gave him a wicked, cheerless smile, “the other can do more than just kill you.” Hoyt swallowed hard. Chastened and astonished, he allowed himself to be led out the front door by Fox, who locked and bolted it behind him. 

Once the narrative had moved on, however, Hoyt swelled back up in fury, the green light around him pulsing like a living thing. “How dare you!” he snarled. “I came here to talk, what do you mean by all this chicanery?”

“Chicanery?” Phryne-2's voice was glacially cold. She had put him into a wrist lock that conveniently pointed her pistol at nice distance from his back, and had taken the added precaution of placing the heel of her shoe directly against the base of his neck as he lay on the ground. Miss Fisher and Dot were detecting as quickly as they could in the kitchen, aided by Caleb Fox instead of the chef, who had also bolted. Normally, he would have been obstructing her in his most starchy manner, but his sudden helpfulness was being narratively attributed to intimidation by proxy and the chapter was thankfully flexing only minimally. “You’re the one who’s suddenly gained teleportation, telepathy, and a bad case of threatening miasma.” She ground her heel more firmly into his spine. “And I’m not telling you if I’ve got the regular pistol or the Eraserhead one either, so I suggest you not gamble.”

“You’re making a mistake,” he snapped. “I’m here about an opportunity. I’m here to show you how I can bring this book to new heights of literary greatness. I can make Miss Fisher legendary.”

“I don’t think she’s going to be interested,” James Clarence said suddenly from his lurking place near the back-alley door. “Especially if it means killing us minor characters off like you’ve been doing.”

“Would you like to join the Detective down in that cistern, Clarence? I suggest you don’t antagonize me, or I can find room in the narrative for an even more malevolent scene for Murrich and I to play. I wouldn't mind a spot of mummification.” James blanched, and his hands were clenching and unclenching when he spoke.

“You don’t scare me Hoyt. You’re still just a puppet, whether of Murrich or the Mary-Sue people. You’ll never be more than a secondary. Your dreams of a sequel are nothing but thought exercises.” Hoyt sneered at that.

“This from the man that Miss Perfect Fisher uses and discards like an old rag. You wait on her hand and foot for a few chapters, and then disappear into the night when she’s had her fill.” He spat, and was rewarded by a shoe pressing heavily into his hairline. “You’re pathetic. She probably can’t even remember if James is your first name or your last name.” Infuriated, James Clarence hurled himself at Hoyt, aiming a kick at his head. Instead, his thin frame connected with the man’s shoulder, sending Hoyt rolling and James staggering into Phryne-2 and knocking the gun to the ground, where it went off with a shattering bang.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my co-workers for help on this chapter. Hi Natalie and Derek!

Thursday didn’t flinch. Well, maybe a little bit, internally. _Getting slow and deaf,_ she groaned to herself. _Aging isn’t for the faint of heart._ “I’m not interested in shooting anyone,” she said, her voice even and placating. “I’m trying to do my job.”

“You the one who keeps overwriting Nattie’s changes?”

“You’d have seen me in the narrative if I were as ham-handed as that.” The man considered this while Thursday sized him up. Bigger than her. Younger. Gun pointed at her head from about two feet away. She wasn’t going to get a second try at taking him down. “You’re from MSEC then?” She kept her hands near her ears and carefully, slowly, straightened her stance. “Always wondered what a PageRunner did once they left home. What book you from?”

“Nothing you’ve heard of,” he snapped. “A terrible Gary-Stu wish-fulfilment run and gun that sells about fourteen copies a year because they’ll let anyone write a book these days.” From the corner of her eye, Thursday could see the muzzle of the gun: a single, baleful black hole, drifting back and forth with a blind stare that never quite left the base of her jaw. _Breathe in._ Back and forth. A little right. A little down. _Breathe out._ Forward, while the man reached for her holster, until the point of the weapon just touched her ear. _Now._

A roll to the inside of his stance. _Evade._ Her left arm sweeping in to manipulate his gun arm. _Trap and control._ Options open for a right-hand blow. _Choice made._ Elbow strike to the neck. The gun, in a flash that wiped out all sense of sound and a lot of her vision, firing in the same moment that her foot smashed into the side of his knee with a crunch. _Disarm._ Thursday wrenched the pistol from the man and covered him as he collapsed into a breathless, gaping heap. Her ears were ringing, her eyes were blurred, and there were gunpowder traces on her jacket from the muzzle flash.

“C-~~_--, -~~ +~_~-’t t_~~-~d.” -p~tt~-n- --~ -~rd- -~k~ --~rds ~- ~c~.

“W-~- th~ h~-- -~d-? Wh~ th~ -=-k ~_~ -~~?” Th~_~ w~_~ t~~_s st_~~k~-g d~w- h~s -~c~. Sh~’d ~t -~~st br~k~- his k-~~, ~- -~t ~-s~ h~s c~--~_b~-~.

“J~_~s-~ct~~-.”

“J~r~s-~ct~on… ~- -oooo.” h~ gr~~ned ~nd cl~tched ~t -is leg -eebl~, wh~per~ng. Th~rsd~y bl~nked ~nd rubbed -er eyes.

“You really shouldn’t have fired that,” she snarled, once she could see again. Her ears were squealing and hammering. The only reason she wasn’t going to be permanently deaf was because his pistol was the same level of shabby writing as he was, coming from a Bourne knockoff where gunshots were only a minor inconvenience to all but the lowest-level mooks. “You’re lucky I didn’t break your sternum along with your leg.”

“But wha-?” He heaved. “I thought you were the good cop?”

“I stop being nice when you shoot at me.” Thursday looked around. There were still three more MSEC goons to deal with. But when she was able to locate them through the smoke, they weren’t behaving as if they were under threat, despite the gunshot.

The Editrix (Nattie?) was shouting into a headset, her laptop abandoned as she tried to examine the Text Proper. Over the noise, Thursday could just make out a few fragments of what she was saying.

“There was a gunshot! ---- but who? Where is he now? Dead? Who killed…? Well no it’s not helpful, he’s a villain! --- can’t have him dead between chapters when --- posed to be an antagonist up until the --- The engines are going haywire!” In that, she was quite correct. Thursday could hear the squealing as the narration struggled to find a way to reconcile what had been written previously with what was currently happening in the book. This was bad. Bert was going to be in deep trouble if he didn’t stay out of the narrative. Let alone Jack and Sharkbait, who were going to be bouncing all around in there. She whirled back to her captive, who was trying, painfully, to creep backwards into the shadows.

“You need to start talking before that book self-destructs with your comrades in it.” The man took a long slow look down the barrel of his own pistol, and decided helpfulness was the better part of valor after all.

\---

## Adrian Hoyt was dead. Miss Fisher had discovered his body outside the back door of the Blue Oyster, with James Clarence standing over him, when she went outside to look for the dope drop-off point. “James? What happened?” The man shrugged helplessly. “Dot,” she said briskly, “call the police. Take James inside and help him speak with them. I’m going to Hoyt’s classroom at the museum to see what I can dig up. At least I know I won’t be disturbed.”

## “Yes miss,” said Dot. “Perhaps I can ask them about my sister as well?”

## “I think that would be an excellent idea.” Carefully, Dot escorted James inside, where she knew she was going to have to place a difficult call to Hugh.

Phryne made a beeline for the shadowed corner where she knew Phryne-2 would be waiting. The other woman was standing there, clothes spattered with gore. She had peeled off her gloves and was slapping one against the wall in a wordless expression of self-directed fury. “Well, old thing,” Phryne said to her, “it looks like we’re going to have to improvise.”

“It would seem so,” the other woman responded. She was shaking her head in frustration. “Damn and blast it! Hoyt goaded him, and our pistol got knocked loose. At least it wasn’t the Eraserhead one.”

“Yes, but all the same, one of our villains is dead, when he’s supposed to survive to the end and beyond.” Together, they looked back at the contorted lump that had once been the main antagonist for two thirds of their book. But Hoyt’s body was no longer lying in the foggy puddle of light under the lamppost. Only a puddle of rapidly-congealing blood remained, with a faint sodium green glow glittering throughout it. Phryne and Phryne-2 stared at each other in dawning horror. The narrative was following Dot. The narrative was about to change. As one, they shouted. “Dot!” Phryne-2 sprinted to the door of the kitchen and peered inside, hunting for Dot and James. The pages were beginning to tremble as the narrative hunted under Read for the now-dead and disappeared Hoyt, and she could smell ozone and smoke permeating the text.

“Phryne, get to that classroom,” she shouted. “The narrative will follow you. I’ll keep them safe – you get us back on course!” For a split second, Miss Fisher stared into her own face, torn between protecting her friend and protecting her whole book. Then, for perhaps the first time in her life, she obeyed an order without question and leapt into the next chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was curious what the obscured text was:  
> “Clearly, you weren't trained,” she said, spitting the words like shards of ice.  
> “What the hell lady? Who the f*ck are you?” There were tears streaking down his face. She’d at least broken his knee, if not also his collarbone.  
> “Jurisfiction.”  
> “Jurisfiction… oh noooo.” He groaned and clutched at his leg feebly, whimpering. Thursday blinked and rubbed her eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

Outside in the Storycode warehouse, Thursday’s mind was racing. The MSEC revolutionary, Drake, had folded like a paperback cover, but she still had nowhere near enough ammo or backup to take down seven other agents. Add to that, the increasingly frantic exclamations of the Editrix were indicating that Hoyt had completely disappeared from everywhere in the book, and the text was becoming dangerously unstable. She was going to have to act, and quickly. She gagged her informant with his own jacket, drew his gun to the ready, and strode into the open. Time for some bravado. 

“I hope you aren’t the one responsible for this.” The Editrix and her two cronies whipped around. The bigger man with the dark hair was Arturo, she had been told. PageRunner from a Western, he would be the one to shoot first, except she’d just gotten the drop on him. The Editrix had given herself the name Nattie, but she had begun as a C-2 Generic in an office romance novel who had been evicted from the text for hacking. She would cave with a gun in her face. Third one was a soft-faced hobbit named Ben, who had skipped out of a terrible Lord of the Rings fanfic. He was the most passionate, but the least dangerous, according to Drake. And, as promised, all three of them froze when confronted with a real person with dimensional motivations. 

“I… This is not my fault.” The Editrix stood, but the engine gave a wheeze, and her eyes were dragged almost magnetically back to her laptop. “I’m trying to fix this, I don’t know what happened.” She knelt again, heedless of Thursday’s weapon, and began typing. “It’s not behaving the way we predicted, and the detective keeps overwriting my changes.” 

“I could have you reduced to text for this, you know.” The Editrix waved her hand absently, typing with the other as she spoke. 

“You see this bracelet, Agent?” She thrust out her hand to display the paracord with its badge. “This is a symbol. We’re not evil, Agent. We want characters and plots to resolve not because the protagonists are special, but because they overcome.” She gestured, and the hobbit held out his own braceleted hand. “If Ben uncoils that, he can survive in Robinson Crusoe without the benefit of an entire ship filled with goodies. Not because he’s somehow the best hobbit in Hobbiton, but because he works for it.” The hobbit nodded silently, running a possessive finger around his jewelry. 

“And you think Miss Fisher isn’t that sort of character.” Thursday was shaking her head at the arrogance. “You really don’t understand literature, do you.” She gestured the two men to the side with a flick of the gun, and they moved meekly away so that she could look over the Editrix’s shoulder. “I’m a cause-and-effect kind of person myself. I believe in small changes that let things happen. Phryne though, she’s a cause-an-effect kind of person. And I don’t think her idea of suitable consequences is going to be quite as proportionate as mine for something like breaking her book.” The Editrix turned back around, fear crossing her face as she realized what Thursday was saying. 

“But... but... we’re trying to help her – we want to make her a better character.”

“Have you actually read her books though?” Nattie shook her head reluctantly. “If you had, you would understand just why your Backstory changes aren’t working. Miss Fisher is an overcomer already. You aren’t introducing anything new when you try and scuttle her. And now, because of your meddling, the thing she has to overcome is the impending destruction of her book, with at least eighty-seven characters inside, including your fellow 'activists.'” All three MSEC members froze, poleaxed with shock. Clearly, their zeal had overridden whatever good sense they'd been written to have.

“So, what do we do? She’s looping chapter six over and over, but I don’t know what she’s doing, and the readership is dropping.” Nattie looked to Thursday with a dependent expression bordering on relief. The agent, shockingly, found herself sympathizing with the C-2. It was beyond difficult to make the jump to self-directed character after starting life as someone just a step above background.

“She’s holding the text there while she tries to figure out a way to cover for Hoyt’s absence. With him dead, he can’t deliver his lecture on Egyptian medicine that hints towards Murrich’s cult using the drugs. She also needs to get an invitation to the Egyptian fete, and notice his trove of smuggled artifacts.”

“So, what, should I just write some drugs on his desk and have the security guard tell her about the lecture?” She turned back to her keyboard, fingers at the ready.

“No, no, too ham-handed. The text will revolt.” Thursday pushed her gently to the side. “I have an idea. First, we need to open a window.”

\---

## The museum was dark and quiet, but Phryne’s nerves were clanging like railroad bells as she crept up the marble stairs. Hoyt was (had been) the next link in the chain. She had meant to attend Hoyt’s class during the day, to examine his artifacts and discover from his lecture his fascination with the spiritual practices of the Egyptians that might have inspired his interest in illicit substances, but examining the man’s possessions would have to provide her the information that she needed. Hoyt had had his own curious, charismatic charm, and he would have surely drawn a crowd to whatever classes he had administered. But the museum was locked for the night, and she needed to find another way in. One window stood open to admit the night air, and she slithered through adroitly, landing, catlike, in Hoyt’s office. Before her were piles of books, strange golden sculptures and, fortuitously, a phonograph. _If he recorded his lectures,_ she thought to herself, _I could hear from the dead._ She rifled through the discs in their paper envelopes, the rustling sounding as loud as a house fire in the stillness of the darkened office. In the middle of the stack was a green envelope labeled: Egyptian Medicine and Mysticism – Next, Thursday. “That sounds promising,” Phryne said, breathing out a deep sigh of relief. She laid it onto the machine and let it run while she prowled through the office, noting a stack of opened mail that included an intriguing-looking invitation on golden cardstock.

## “As it stands,” Hoyt’s voice crackled from the trumpet, “we know only that we know very little about what the Egyptians ate, drank, and compounded from their pharmacopeia, whether for medicine or pleasure…”

\---

The narrative, shivering with the aftershocks of Hoyt’s death, had settled for the moment. Phryne-2 breathed out a deep sigh of relief and looked around at the Blue Oyster, wondering just what kind of damage even the momentary stall had done. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be much. James was huddled next to Dot, who had her arm around him. Caleb Fox was carefully reinforcing the descriptions of his restaurant, since a few sentences had been shaken loose. “Whatever Miss Fisher has done, it seems to have been enough that the chapter ahead of us is staying on track.” There was a rumble as she spoke, and out the window, dawn was suddenly breaking in an unhealthy yellow-grey color. “Mostly.”

“That’s why she’s the protagonist,” Dot replied. “She thinks on her feet faster than anyone I’ve ever met.” She patted the wavering James gently on the head, like comforting a small child afraid of a thunderstorm. “Don’t worry Mr. Clarence, she’ll find a way to keep it all together.”

“And if she doesn’t? What then?” His voice was mostly controlled, but Phryne-2 realized he had to be almost at the end of his tether. “I’m in a lot more trouble than either of you if this book goes down. Whatever MSEC doesn’t ruin, I’ll be on the dock for. Jurisfiction will haul me in and reduce me to text.” He wrung his hands desperately.

"I don’t think that’s true, James,” Caleb Fox replied. He was working busily, having blown out all the candles in their graceful silver holders to prevent any fire risk, and was now collecting every available cooking or eating utensil that could be weaponized and laying them out neatly on the tables. “That agent you mentioned, if she has power enough to be issued Eraserheads, then they trust her not to be hotheaded about using them. She’ll hear you out, I’m sure.” He offered the man a French rolling pin, and James took it with a jittery smile, twirling the utensil on the table.

“What do you suppose Hoyt meant, that he was offering to make Phryne Fisher legendary?” Phryne-2 asked.

“Probably the MSEC people got into his head,” James suggested. “Gave him magic powers or something.” He played anxiously with his makeshift weapon as he spoke. “He would have been unbearable by chapter fifteen. All that chanting and hypnotizing.” He cocked his head as if hearing Hoyt's elliptic conversation and shuddered.

“Powers?” Dot turned to Phryne-2, concerned. “Miss, you don’t suppose MSEC gave him something out of Horror, do you?” Phryne-2’s face dropped.

“I don’t know Dot, but it would explain the green glow and the disappearing body. And if he can resurrect, he’s going to act just like a horror mummy and come back more unhinged and determined than before.” She glanced back out the window at the spot under the lamppost, still glittering faintly in the dim morning.

“Well, that settles it then,” Dot said, standing. “We have to go to chapter ten to warn the Inspector. Mr. Fox, would you look after James please? His kidnap isn’t until one chapter later, and he’s in no shape to jump away if there’s a Retcon that comes your way.” Caleb gave her a smile, but before he could respond, James rose up, an eerie green light glinting in his eyes.

“No thank you, Mr. Fox,” came the voice out of Clarence’s mouth. Hoyt’s voice. “I will go myself.” He hurled the rolling pin like a cartwheeling missile, cracking Caleb on the back of the head and dropping him like a bag of cement. Still in motion, he snatched Dot by her braid and teleported with a pop, leaving Phryne-2 lunging at empty air with a wisp of sodium glow. Under her feet, the narrative gave another ominous rumble.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter twenty was eerily empty. There were no cars on the Esplanade, no bathers in the ocean. There wasn’t so much as a bird in the dim grey sky, and the flowers in the garden were shifting back and forth from bloom to bud as the narrative wavered between seasons. The house stood bravely, but there was a worrying stillness to it that put Bert in mind of the dead calm between the end of a shelling and the start of your hearing coming back. He didn’t bother calling for the Butlers, since that would bring them into closer proximity with the main text, but instead crept carefully to the study. It still seemed fairly stable, with a wooden writing desk in the center, and a decent selection of reference books along one wall. The other wall was the one he wanted, the one with her novels that might or might not violate the decency statutes. He scanned along the spines, looking for the book on the shelf that served as Miss Fisher’s conduit into _Whose Body?_ It was a narrow hardbound volume, with ‘Sayers’ picked out in gold against the green linen, and when he drew it off the shelf, it fell open easily to the page he needed, at the juncture of chapters one and two. But as he ran his finger down the lines, he was interrupted by the noise of the front door slamming. Startled, he nearly dropped the book. A brunette head peeped around the doorframe, followed by a hand clutching a straw hat. “Ruthie, what the blue blazes are you doin’ here?” The girl’s round face ghosted over with hurt. She and Bert were usually great friends, but everything was going strangely today.

“Mr. and Mrs. Butler insisted Cec drive us into town when the narrative started going wiggly, but I forgot my sunhat and ran back. Where are all the Generics? The beach is empty, and the ocean is going all funny.” Bert’s face drained of color. A glance out the window confirmed what he had most feared. The narrative was flexing. No. It was _changing._ The whole setting was shifting, and Miss Fisher’s study wasn’t going to be in the book at all in just a few more paragraphs. Even as he watched, the text rolled up in a wave, threatening to overwhelm the street as lines and sentences dropped away.

“Ruthie, we’re going. We’re going right bloody now!” He threw a lightning hand out, snatched her by the loose billow of her sundress, and made the longest bookjump of his life, hoping against hope he would wind up in Lord Peter Wimsey’s London flat.

\---

Phryne knew trouble was brewing. The text had simply…stopped. Like a car in the wrong gear, or an airplane with a bullet hole in something important, there was a shaking, a hideous smell, and a cacophony of silences in all the wrong places. She and Thursday had been keeping the chapter limping along, but her prowl was now leading her back to the hotel, and the pieces of the narrative were refusing to fall together. Then, as she rounded a corner, she all but crashed into herself. A look at herself was all she needed to realize that things had gone desperately, terrifyingly wrong.

“Hoyt’s possessed James, kidnapped Dot, and is making for Jack this instant.” No hint of panic. Pure steel determination and fury. They stared each other down. It was clear what had to happen – Phryne was going to have to depend on herself. But then, that was what she always did.

“Loop the text inside the hotel. Unpack, take a bath, write case notes. Anything to delay. Go to sleep and take the reader with you if you can. Understand?” Two pairs of scarlet lips thinned into matching fiery lines. 

“Understood.” Phryne-2 snatched Miss Fisher’s handbag from her arm and slung it onto her own. Then, as though she had no cares in the world at all, she strode briskly back into the text and carried it away with her.

\---

As a Senior Detective Inspector, Jack Robinson had worked his way up through the ranks through a combination of observational skill, quiet persistence, and willingness to treat even the grimiest guttersnipe with the same respect as his own constables. He was by no means unacquainted with the wide variety of people that could be found in the underbelly of any city. He had never, however, encountered a person with quite the same expansive personality as Sharkbait Kennedy. The tattooed sailor was gruff, loud, and the de facto beloved leader of the supporting characters. He seemed to have a friend in every crowd scene, and astonishingly detailed knowledge of characters that featured only barely, sometimes only as a part of a single collective noun within a sentence. It had been fully expected in chapter four, where Dot explored the depths of Palmer street, that Kennedy would know the doormen, the busboys, the burlesque dancers and the mop girl. But now, in the middle of chapter ten, in a milling crowd in a stolid museum of ancient antiquities, he was shaking hands with the curator of the Egypt exhibit as if he’d grown up with the man.

“So, Branley, what I need to do is explain me’self,” he said earnestly. “You know Murrich has been supercharged, yeah? And that Hoyt… well, somethin’s goin’ on with Hoyt too.” The curator nodded meekly. “And we think it has somethin’ to do with those blokes n’ sheilas with the green bracelets. We need them outta our book.”

“I appreciate your stance, Sharkbait,” said the curator. He ran a hand through undescribed hair and sighed, shifting uneasily behind his solid mahogany podium. “They did come around here, I’ll admit. But they seemed fairly harmless to me.”

“Gentlemen,” Robinson interrupted, “there’s a narrative shift heading our way.” The three men retreated to the margins of the text while it rattled its way through, throwing the museum into disorder and leaving a faint, worrying scent of smoke behind. When they returned, Murrich was standing in front of them, looking bewildered. His cotton robes billowed impressively, but his normally clean-shaven face showed signs of stubble, and his headdress was sitting askew on his head. He opened his mouth to deliver his lines, but Robinson merely held up a hand. “We know, Murrich, you’re here on the bidding of Osiris, to do his work and restore his kingdom. You’re early. Narrative won’t be here for several more chapters.” The man gaped like a grouper, bumped down into a tangerine-colored plush chair and put his head into his hands.

“Can someone please explain what’s going on?” Murrich’s voice, when not projecting over the heads of a drugged crowd of worshippers, was strong, but gravellier than would be expected. He sounded to Jack like a radio station that hadn’t quite been fully tuned. “I thought I was supposed to be collecting my children around me, that we might populate the barge of the Sun as we made our way to Osiris’ kingdom. And where is Adrian, my Anubis? He’s not been at the museum or anywhere else.”

Sharkbait, a dubious expression on his face, declined to comment. Jack sighed. “Hoyt has found other allies, I’m afraid. They’ve offered him an expanded part in the narrative in exchange for changing the tone of the book.”

“Not those MSEC meddlers!” Murrich snorted his disapproval, and Kennedy’s geniality returned. He sat down next to the affronted cult leader and offered him a swig from his flask. Murrich took it without hesitation, though the cheap rum did little to ease the rasp of his voice. “They came to me at the end of our last read-through, gave me a trial run of some frightening powers, but they told me there were strings attached.” He took a longer swig, his ire growing as he spoke. “They want Miss Fisher brought low, humbled, made to weep and grovel before Fate and Death. But she’s my adversary! I don’t want her crushed to dust, I want our clash to be momentous and shining bright.” He drained the flask and coughed. “I gave them the bookend. Apparently, Hoyt was more willing to listen.”

“So you’ll help us?” Jack asked. “We’re staging an ouster. We have Jurisfiction working on the outside, and when we get her signal, the Generics are going to move against them in all chapters at the same time. There are only four, but they've been given a lot of anachronistic tech and power.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Murrich said. He smiled, and his filed teeth glistened in the light, making him look rather like a cat presented with an opportunity at a particularly fat sparrow. “My children will listen to me, and I’d like to command an army.” He pulled a bronze ceremonial sword from a sheath behind his back and showed it to Sharkbait. “I think this will work nicely as an extraction tool, don’t you think?”

“Ahh, yeah, that’s a beaut of a shark-sticker now,” Sharkbait exclaimed. Branley, the curator, reached out a sudden hand when he realized the sword was one of the artifacts from the museum, looked at the two roughs in front of him examining it with distinct possessiveness, and decided against commenting. Jack shot the man a sympathetic look and began trekking through the paragraphs, sticking to the margins. He could feel something coming. Call it intuition, call it reading ahead, but something was wrong. And then he saw it. Ahead of him, the chapter quote for eleven was coming into view, but wasn’t the usual quip from _A Companion Guide to Sydney._ Instead, it read:

##  _“The breaking of so great a thing should make/_  
_A greater crack: the round world/_  
_Should have shook lions into civil streets,/_  
_And citizens to their dens.”_

Jack knew that quote boded nothing good. And as he watched, the lettering under the chapter number was suffused with a sick green light, and for just a moment, the attribution wavered from: 

##  _Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare, Act V, Scene I_

to

##  _Come find her quickly, Inspector. Adrian Hoyt_


	10. Chapter 10

“Well hullo -ullo -ullo? What’s this then?” Bert opened his eyes. He was lying on an Oriental rug, his head a few inches from the spindly leg of a piano, which he had apparently collided with. Ruthie was sitting next to him, her hands trembling with shock, her mint sundress tattered. The room they had landed in was warm and inviting, populated with all sorts of rich furnishings and art, while a wet London night beat against the windows. Standing over the both of them was a tall, aristocratic blond man. If the man had been poor, he would have been said to have a homely look to him. Since he was dug in here, with the word money all but written on the walls, his face was merely unusual. Add that to the long musician's hands and the ridiculous monocle, and this had to be Lord Peter Wimsey. Bert struggled to sit, bashed his head on the piano with an awful clang, and allowed himself to be helped up by the English detective. “I’m going to hazard a guess that things are not alright in Miss Fisher’s latest,” Wimsey said, surveying them both, from Ruthie’s damaged dress to Bert’s furious expression and bruised face.

“Now that’s a bl—oomin’ understatement,” Bert snapped. Ruthie allowed herself to be helped up as well, dashing away her tears discreetly. “We’ve got MSEC messin’ around with the narrative, and whatever they just did, the ending of that book is good and thoroughly changed, and almost took us with it.” Wimsey’s lips narrowed grimly. “They’ve cut the footnoterphone conduits, and that Agent Next sent me for help.” Wimsey strode to where _The Yarra Razors_ had fallen on the floor and paged through it, his expression growing darker as he skimmed the text.

“This thing is barely holding together,” he said. “We’re going to need to bring TGC up to speed so they can get into the Storycode Engine rooms.” He strode to his telephone and began to dial. “Hello, Cat? Yes, there’s a problem down in Mystery. _The Yarra Razors_ has a rogue antagonist, and the text is starting to come apart. Agent Next is requesting backup. Very well. No, I don’t know why a camel would do that. Thank you, Cat.” He hung up and turned back to Bert and Ruth. “They’re sending a pack of agents in. Bradshaw missed her, but they didn’t know where to look. I think your book may be salvageable, even if the ending has shifted.” Bert relaxed at those words, but Ruth did not. Instead, she snatched the volume from Wimsey’s hands and flipped to the end. Almost immediately, she burst into tears once more.

“It’s no good,” she sobbed. “It’s no good. We can’t go back. I should be entering right there, and Jane and I are gone.” Bert looked on astonished as she jabbed her finger at the page. He and Lord Peter exchanged horrified looks over the top of the girl’s head. She was right. She had been written out entirely.

\---

The fancy-dress ball was in full swing when Jack arrived at the steps to the Town Hall. There were lanterns strung along the pediments and coiling up the marble columns, giving the building the look of a Grecian princess dripping in diamonds, albeit a slightly drunk one, given the profusion of bottles that had been abandoned in the bushes. He could see light pouring from the windows, and there was a doorman checking the golden invitations. Invitations… That was going to be a problem. Still, no help for it; he had to get inside. He strode forward to the steps of the Town Hall, noting with increasing worry the glazed look on the face of the broad man checking the guests against his list. As he drew nearer, he put his hands in his pockets, hoping he wouldn’t have to use his weapon. But instead of his pistol, the first thing his fingers encountered was a square of cardstock. When he pulled it into the light, it glinted gold. _Of course. The borrowed coat._ Now more confident, he presented the invitation to the doorman, who looked him up and down. “And jus’ what are you here for?”

“I’m in costume,” Jack said. “I’m that police Detective. What’s his name – Robinson.”

“Yeh? That so.” The man looked at the invitation. “Awright Mr. Generic4, in yeh go.” Tipping his hat to the man, Jack slipped inside. Now, he needed to find Hoyt in the swirling mass of costumed partygoers. The ballroom was filled to capacity with guests, some drunk, some drugged. Almost nobody paid any mind to the lone man in the blue wool suit, overcoat, and fedora as he drifted from group to group, save a few admiring looks from some of the less sozzled women. The nature of the party was unsettled at best. At times, it was the original fancy-dress ball, with couples in fantastic costumes dancing to a jazz band. He was nearly bowled over by a Julius Caesar doing an exuberant Charleston as he passed by the punch bowl. But in other corners, blank-eyed cultists were gathering, transplants from later in the book, or perhaps rescues, given the growing instability of the text. They hummed and swayed, holding candles in trembling hands that made the edges of the room flicker and waver. Jack looked around uneasily. There was no sign of their leader, and anyone who caught on to who he was would be able to overwhelm him in a heartbeat. And then, as he turned away, he felt a slim arm slide around his waist and spin him into a dance with two words whispered in his ear.

“Hello Jack.” Of course, it would be her. There was no way she would have stayed kidnapped for long, if she’d ever actually been kidnapped at all. She leaned in close, and he could smell Jicky wafting around them in a halo. “Your costume is very good, if a little understated.” His throat suddenly felt very dry.

“I had to improvise,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the room. Her own costume was of a thin, filmy, and sparse enough material that good manners forbid him from examining her in much detail, beyond registering that it was something Egyptian in nature. He focused over her turquoise-encrusted shoulder instead. Still no Hoyt. Obligingly, she steered them past the band so he could peer into the back, toward the private offices. “I was under the impression you’d been captured, and the book was going to collapse.”

“He captured Dot,” she said, her voice tight with compressed fury. “Phryne-2 and Thursday are keeping us afloat. I’m here for Hoyt.” She led them deftly, avoiding a cluster of white-linen draped chanters with a delicate sidestep. “I’m very glad for your assistance though. Please don’t stand in front of me when I shoot him.”

“Miss Fisher,” he hissed, “he’s already been killed once, and that has not helped anything. I would advise not doing it again.”

“That was an accident,” she said, with a hint of dangerous carelessness. “This time will be on purpose.” She gave herself a twirl with his hand, and they were dancing their way behind the band, into a darker recess where a locked door blocked the partygoers from the rest of the building. “Now, try to look like you’re enjoying yourself, and keep a lookout for anyone with a glazed look heading our way.” With another whirl, she had spun him so his back was against the door, and was now slithering her way down his shirtfront to her knees, the golden serpent on her head bobbing pertly near his belt buckle. _Oh, good Lord. She wasn’t seriously…_ He goggled as she moved his coat aside and fumbled in her neckline for a long moment before finally, his brain caught up, and he realized she was picking the lock, using him - his body - as cover. His hands clenched uncomfortably at the doorframe as propriety warred with the absolute desperation of the situation.

“Miss Fisher!”

“Cheer up, Inspector,” she replied, “Hoyt thinks I’m a flighty tart, with playthings rather than partners. Your cover as a background character is perfectly safe.” He did not find that particularly reassuring. "That being said, I promise not to do this to you again the next time the book rolls around. Far too much respect for Rosie for that."

"Much appreciated," he replied, sounding slightly strangled.

“Ah,” she said, far more happily than the moment warranted. “An easy one.” A faint click came from just behind his hipbone, and she slid back up with a wicked look in her eyes. “Now, we just need to stagger amorously through the door, and we’ll have a straight run through the left hall and down the staircase to where Hoyt has most probably stashed Dot. Mind the gown, would you, Jack?” He nodded wordlessly and then, with a final glance around the uncaring party, slung her through the door and followed.


	11. Chapter 11

The hallway was in far rougher shape than the ballroom. As the Inspector and Miss Fisher sprinted along towards the basement stairs, Jack could see into the offices that had once been intended for the Mayor and his associates. Now, behind the glass panes, he could see other bits of setting appearing and disappearing on top of the desks and taking the place of the coat racks and typewriters. He paused at what had been the Mayor’s office, watching a bit of river flowing in and out of the window, over top of a curb from outside in the street. The doorknob, as he watched, bloomed into an enormous pink and yellow flower. _Very pretty,_ he thought. _Didn’t know there were sorbet peonies growing out here._

“Jack, watch out,” Miss Fisher admonished from up ahead. “It’s going Alice on us.” He nodded and turned to follow her, dodging concernedly sentient-looking wildlife darting across the hallway. They made their way to the staircase, Jack leaving a careful gap between himself and the walls that were shuffling between paneling patterns. But as Miss Fisher descended the staircase, the narrative gave a sudden heave, hurling her toward the door at the base of the stairs. Unthinking, Jack threw one hand out to snatch a handful of the back of her gown and another against the wall to steady himself. “Thank you, Jack, I’m alright,” she said. But there was no response from the Inspector, only a sharp intake of breath and the barest hint of a groan. When she turned to look at him, he was focused instead on his arm. A long trail of blood was seeping from inside his coat, rolling down his fingers in scarlet beads, staining his shirt cuff a deep and widening crimson. Somehow, his death from the chapters ahead had found him early.

“Miss Fisher,” he said softly, and with a note of resignation that made every fiber of her being revolt. “The narrative is trying to snap back. This is the way it's supposed to happen. I’m going to die soon. You’d better hurry and confront Hoyt.” His eyes were downward, trying not to look at his injury. Trying not to look at her.

“Not without you, Jack.” She knelt, catching his gaze and drawing it away from his injury. 

“This is what’s meant to happen, and if it keeps the book together…” His eyes were gentle, even understanding, but she shook her head, seizing his wrist in a tourniquet grip while she shredded the bottom of her dress with her other hand and her teeth, making bandages. She cinched them around his forearm expertly, examining his other arm for traces of the other slash, but it hadn’t appeared yet.

“This isn’t even the right time. You may have to die, but I’m not going to just walk away and let it happen.” Jack's arm attended to, she turned back to the basement door. Worryingly, it appeared to be unlocked. “Hoyt may be expecting us, so be careful.”

“Of course, Miss Fisher.”

“I mean it. No dying until I say so.” A ghost of a smile crossed his lips.

“I’ll do my best.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have much choice, Mr. Generic4,” rang a voice. The door had swung open, or maybe disappeared. Hoyt was standing at the end of the room, enveloped in green light shot through with gold. He lifted a staff he must have stolen from the museum and as he spoke, Jack was dragged bodily away from Miss Fisher, skidding until he hit the plinth on which was perched the madman’s thronelike chair.

\---

Thursday had all but exhausted her profanity reserves. She had begun in English, switched to Welsh, and when that had felt too inexplicit, had begun expelling most of the combat Russian she knew in furious staccato bursts. Nattie was beginning to look afraid again. Well, more afraid. For someone who fancied herself suited to a thriller, she had a fairly jellied backbone at the moment.

“Agent Next, what do we do?” Her fingers were bleeding, nails bitten down to the quick, and her three MSEC compatriots had retreated to the other side of the Engine for fear that Thursday might take out her rising frustration on them. “I don’t think this is going to hold for much longer.”

“Every line Phryne-2 and you can get out of this book is something that should stay stable until the end of the Read cycle,” Thursday snapped. “Don’t you dare give up on her yet.” Resolutely, she stood.

“But, but, where are you going?” the hacker asked, her hands fluttering nervously.

“Back into the book. If TGC bursts through those doors, give them this.” She scrawled something on the back of a business card from her wallet and handed it to Nattie. “You’ve been granted temporary official Editrix powers, and if you abuse them so help me Shakespeare, you will be imprisoned in _The Count of Monte Cristo_ for so long as you are in print, which will not be long after I’m done with you.”

“What do I do?” Nattie begged, watching as Thursday readied herself for her jump. “I can put in some exits in case there needs to be an evacuation, but what then?”

“Just keep writing. Miss Fisher will think of something.” Thursday’s last glimpse of Nattie before she jumped was of the woman cracking her knuckles over the keyboard. _Let’s hope that wasn’t a terrible idea._ But she couldn’t delay any longer. She had spotted Hoyt’s message to Jack in the chapter heading, and she knew without a doubt that Hoyt was baiting him. Using Dot to catch Jack, and Jack to catch Phryne – spiderlike and brilliant, unfortunately. Ben had admitted that they’d offered him some spare abilities out of the fanfic that the hobbit had escaped, and Hoyt was currently channeling a weird hybrid version of Spock and Shelob, “Shelock, Agent. It was a terrible AU,” hence the hypnotism, the glowing, and the arrogant intellect, already paired with the Egyptian aims of afterlife and resurrection. _Pity they didn’t bring a version of Sting along,_ Thursday mused. She had leapt into the end of the chapter, and was working her way back. The Town Hall was still ringing with music, and the doorman appeared to have disappeared inside, but Thursday wasn’t interested in using the front door. She crept through the shrubbery until she reached the rear statuary garden, dodging bottles to avoid making a noise. The old architecture wouldn’t have had a cellar with an exterior escape, but splicing spider into Hoyt would have made him eager for just such a setup. Sure enough, a pair of doors, chained heavily, were concealed in the formal garden, just behind a bust of some dyspeptic politician on a pedestal. From inside, she could hear pounding and a voice calling out.

“Miss? Miss, are you there?”

“Miss Williams, it’s me, Agent Next.” Thursday felt a surge of relief. “I’m opening the doors, stand back.”

“Yes Miss Agent, please don’t use an Eraserhead, I can’t back sideways all that far.” Thursday cast around for a suitable bludgeon, and her eyes lit upon the stone head and shoulders on his plinth. A few quick, shattering raps from the marble head, and the hinge on one rotting door gave way. With a heave, Thursday tossed the door open to reveal Dot, dirty and infuriated, but otherwise unharmed. Dot greeted her rescuer with a torrent of words.

“Oh, thank goodness it’s you. They threw me in here without so much as a by-your-leave. He’s definitely channeling something out-of-genre, it’s so absurd-looking, not even useful as a walking stick, and I need to get back to Miss Fisher before…”

“Dot,” Thursday interrupted. “It’s gotten worse since then.”

“Worse? How do you mean?”

“We’ve got the external changes stopped, but Hoyt has gone rogue and is trying to become the protagonist.” Dot stuffed her knuckles into her mouth to stifle a gasp. “Dot, you need to find Sharkbait – he should be with Murrich – and start rounding up everyone to oust the four MSEC agents. Miles and Kingston are guarding the cistern in eighteen, the other two should be in eight near the brothel.”

“Absolutely, Agent Next. But where will you be? I thought you were going to give the signal.”

“It’s your signal now, Dot, as soon as you're in position.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I’m a secondary main character, I don’t usually do those sorts of things.” Thursday shrugged, her mind already running through scenarios that did not end with herself or any of the book’s main characters dead, maimed, or fodder for autocorrect. “I’m sure you’ll think of something Dot. Now, please, I need to get down there - does this passage lead back to the basement where Hoyt is?”

“Yes Miss, it does. I don’t know why a Town Hall would have them, but the hallway will put you right into the cellar storerooms. The other side is all barred up though.”

“Let me worry about locks and bars. You get those agents ejected so I have one less thing to factor in.”

“Of course. I’ll fetch my sister and we’ll give them a right belt.” Dot all but saluted before rushing off, anxious to complete her assignment. That left Thursday alone, facing down a dark tunnel that echoed with the faint noise of chanting and voices. “Lovely,” she grumbled. “Ominous and cliché at the same time. Second-rate villain with no imagination whatsoever.” Pistol unholstered, she clicked on a penlight and ventured down the mildewed and slippery staircase with all senses on high alert.


	12. Chapter 12

“Do you know how I’ve been longing to meet you, now that I am your equal, Miss Fisher?” Hoyt leered from where he stood, stepping over Jack’s unconscious body to greet her. When the door had disappeared, she had been enveloped in the same green light that was emanating from a staff in Hoyt’s hand. “MSEC has given me so many gifts, so many opportunities to become a greater character. Stronger than Murrich, more foreboding than Kennedy, even more lines to say than your beloved Dorothy, let alone this poor puppet,” he said gleefully, one hand waving dismissively at the Inspector as the other lifted the staff. “What is he, some besotted Generic that you persuaded to assist you at the party in exchange for some unseemly favor?” He stepped closer. “And yet you deny me. Time after time, Read cycle after Read cycle. You were too perfect for me, but now I am too strong for you.” He came closer, a conflicting mass of emotions racing across his face. Miss Fisher radiated contempt so strongly it was like a physical wall.

“I’m not sure I could have been clearer, Hoyt, but just in case, I’d suggest only getting close to me with parts of your body you’re prepared to have removed.” She bared her teeth, and even gripped in the supernatural light of three combined narrative abilities, her fingers were flexing in preparation to strangle him.

“And how do you plan to do that?” Hoyt sneered, even as he retreated slightly. His aura wavered, and behind him, unnoticed, Jack stirred and sat up dizzily. “I don’t see that popgun of yours, and even if you had it, it wouldn’t be enough. You don’t have your policeman friend to put me in handcuffs and tote me obediently away, and I don’t think Dorothy is going to be much help locked up in the cellar.” He twirled his staff nonchalantly, eyes fixed hungrily on her. “You’re out of your element, Lady Detective. And you’re going to be delightfully sorry for it in the end.”

“You’re killing yourself along with all of us if you keep this up,” Phryne snapped. She had seen Jack’s head turn toward the cellar storerooms, and had an inkling where he was creeping off to, a few painful, subtle feet at a time. He already had one hand, the damaged one, on the lock, and she felt certain it was no longer Dot who was behind that door. “Have you not noticed just how hard we’ve had to work to keep this book on track?”

“ _The Yarra Razors_ will rise again, Miss Fisher. But this time, oh, this time….” He trailed off momentarily, and his aura flickered again. The text flexed slightly, and Hoyt staggered, his face flashing grey. Someone was editing him, taking his Horror abilities away. In the same instant, she heard her own voice hiss: “Phryne!” and felt the soft flop of her handbag at her feet. _Thanks, me,_ she thought. But when Hoyt stood again, he was no longer facing Phryne, but Jack. “Oh no you don’t, you miserable little Generic!” In a flash, he had dropped his staff, seized the Inspector by the collar and was dragging him back to the dais.

“This is what I don’t understand, Miss Fisher.” He held Jack up by his arm, and she could see that the other slash had started to open on his wrist, even as he feebly scrabbled for his gun. “I could kill this Generic right now, and it wouldn’t bend the text more than a microcosmic amount. But you’ll bestow your company on him without compunction.” He shook his head, but then a sudden, hideous smile slithered across his face. “But maybe,” he mused, “maybe that’s why MSEC granted me these abilities. Maybe I can bring us both to greater heights with one simple little act.” He reached into Jack’s pocket and pulled out his gun, pointing it at the Inspector’s head thoughtfully, squinting at his face. “I think I do recognize you after all. Greetings, Inspector.” Jack spat at him, and Hoyt rolled his eyes. “It looks like I’ve sped your death up a bit, but I’d like to finish the job now.” 

“Don’t you dare!” Phryne dragged against the bond holding her, and felt it give. Not a lot, but enough. She would be able to reach the Eraserhead pistol if she fought. And she was ready to fight.

“Think about it Miss Fisher,” Hoyt hissed. “He’s just a minor character, but if I kill him - if you let him die in front of you, you’ll give yourself depth. You’ll give yourself tragedy in the here-and-now. You could be more than just a serial-novel detective. You could be one of the great characters: like Hamlet, like Othello, and I your grand antagonist. You could find another one of these,” he shook Jack like a scruffed kitten, scattering blood on the floor, “on the shelf at a toy store.”

Phryne could hear faint banging from the cellars, but Agent Next was going to lose the element of surprise in just a moment here. And for the life of her, she couldn’t take her eyes off of Jack. “You and all your skills, you can’t stop me doing this to him, can you Miss Fisher? Miss Perfect Fisher, not willing to be a great character, not strong enough to stop me from becoming one. Maybe I’ll erase him altogether and then you’ll be so tragic that I will be villain victorious over all these petty little cogs in my machine.” Infuriated, Phryne dragged herself forward, subtly knocking her handbag open at the same time.

“Hoyt,” she snarled. “I’m going to give you one last chance. Books need antagonists. And I’ve given you latitude to work. But if you keep trying to tear our story - our home - apart for your own advancement, you’re going to regret it for the few moments you keep living.”

“I don’t care about your petty little narrative, Miss Fisher. I will be the god of something far greater when I’m finished here. Death is cheap, and I certainly don’t care if or when it happens to this generic little man.” He shook Jack again, and a desperate bead of red appeared at the Inspector’s throat. His eyes widened, but he shook his head. _Phryne, no._ A blue fire kindled in her eyes at that.

“He is not just a Generic,” she roared. “He is Detective Inspector John Edmund Robinson. He has a wife that he loves, a garden full of orchids, a head full of Shakespeare, and perfect high cheekbones, whether you see them or not. He is not some swappable part in your story. He is MY JACK AND HE DOES NOT DIE.” With those words, Phryne contorted in a wordless howl. She dragged the pistol from her handbag, pointed it at Hoyt, and fired three times, blasting through his ribcage and into the pillar behind him. He staggered backwards, hands clutching at the empty space that had once been his lungs. Both Jack and the magic staff crashed heavily to the ground as Hoyt's form crumpled, leaking punctuation on the floor, his eyes blank and face emptying of personality. He was no longer a character at all, just a messy, disintegrating pile of letters.

Without so much as a glance at the jumble of serifs and ink on the ground, she tore across the room towards Jack, eyeing the red puddle of drops around him fearfully. “I’m not too late, this isn’t too late,” she chanted. Tears were prickling at her eyes as she snatched up his hand, squeezing it in her own as she pulled him away from the mess. “Inspector, please tell me you’re all right, please.” She patted his cheeks, tracing the shapes of his wide mouth, his lined cheeks, his crisp jaw and cleft chin. Her breath hitched in her throat. “Jack, please…” She was answered with a groan, and his eyes, now a gentle gray-blue, looked up at her with remarkable humor, given the situation. It made her, fleetingly, rather want to snog him sideways and senseless. _Where had that thought come from?_ The mark on his neck was little more than a shaving nick, and when she tore open his sleeve, the blood there was fading away as well, with slowly-mending lines along his forearms the only hint of how close he’d come to dying in front of her. “Oh Jack,” she whispered. “Thank goodness.” 

Her sigh folded into his lungs, reinvigorating him in a way he had not been expecting. He felt the warmth – the essential vigor of her – beginning to seep into his bones as he lay there, gathering himself back together. She slid one arm under his head, meaning to draw him up. Instead, without thinking, he raised his free hand and brushed a wayward lock of her hair back behind her ear. His fingertips tracing her hairline seemed to have the same effect on her as she was having on him, and briefly, her eyes flickered closed and a faint smile thinned her lips. _Her Jack._ The thought should have worried him, or made him at least concerned for his future trajectory. But instead, what he felt was a sense that no matter who he was now, he was inextricably under her aegis, not just an occasional visitor to her life story. _I think I can cope with that,_ he thought, shifting his weight gingerly and rearranging his shredded clothes as best he could.

“Are you _ever_ going to let me rescue you, Miss Fisher?” His tone was somewhere between exasperation and relief, and it couldn’t have been sweeter to her ears.

“No,” she sniffed happily as he sat forward, leaning comfortably on her arm. “Never. Never ever.” Her face was shining, and even the ominous rumbling from the scenery didn’t seem to faze her. She was going to fix this. “Now, let’s get you home safe to Rosie.” That elicited a wince and she drew back hurriedly. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I don’t know if I have a wife anymore. I think I got edited when they were trying to cripple Hoyt.” His hands were still shaky and his face a slightly sickly color; what she now recognized as telltale signs of an unsigned character change, not just shock from blood loss.

“Of course you still have a wife,” Miss Fisher insisted. “And if they’ve hurt you, I can fix it, I’m sure.” She helped him to his feet, a new wellspring of determination thrumming in her heart. _Her Jack, without a doubt_

“Let’s worry about my marital status later, shall we? I believe your bullets hit something important.” He pointed upwards, toward the shivering ceiling, and they both dodged away as a large timber gave way and crashed down, crushing Hoyt’s chair.

"That was not my fault," she replied as they stood back up. "I only shot one pillar, not all of these that are coming down."

“If you could let me out,” Thursday shouted from the storeroom with some acerbity. “I’d prefer not to die in a scenery collapse.”


	13. Chapter 13

A few moments’ combined tussling on the part of Thursday, Jack, and Phryne were required before the storeroom door could be forced open. The room was beginning to creak, sagging under the weight of the Town Hall above them, over the pillar with the missing section.

“Hoyt had no sense at all,” Thursday snarled as she edged through the few inches of gap they’d been able to create. “Imagine making yourself a Load Bearing Boss when your hideout is a cellar.” She turned to the other two, and stopped dead, staring at Robinson with an expression of disbelief. “…Inspector? Is that you?”

“Since last I checked,” the man replied, “why?” Thursday shot Miss Fisher a withering look.

 _What did you do to him?_ The lady detective merely shrugged, unperturbed. She was not about to complain. Not at all.

“Never mind, Robinson,” Next said, still shaking her head. “I’m just waiting on Dot’s signal which should be happening…” A burst of Latin rang out in the text, thrumming in everyone’s ears at the same moment.

##  **Dies iræ, dies illa  
** **Solvet sæclum in favilla,**  
**Teste David cum Sibylla.**

****

“Yes, that sounds like Dot,” Miss Fisher laughed. “Very Catholic, if a bit overdone. But she doesn’t always get a chance to do the active thing.”

“Time for us to go, I think,” said Robinson, looking around. “We might still have a chance to bring the narrative around if…” he trailed off, a look of dawning horror on his face. “Murrich, no! Don’t touch that!”

Near where the dais had been, Murrich had clambered through the floor from the upper level, using the fallen beam as a makeshift ladder. He was kneeling on the ground, trying to peer under the pile to see, presumably, where Hoyt had gotten off to. In one hand, he held the golden curlicued staff that Hoyt had been toting around, MSEC’s last gift before Thursday had managed to beat some sense into them. The other was reaching for the seething mess that had once been Hoyt. As his hand descended into the ink, the staff began to glow again.

Miss Fisher was closest. Instinctively, she dove at Murrich with admirable rugby form, knocking him back from the malignant mess. But it came with them both, swarming over Miss Fisher and Murrich in a seething mass of what looked to be spiders. As soon as the clouds of miniature Shelobs touched the pillars, they started crumbling in earnest, and the entire ceiling began to drop enormous timbers and chunks of masonry. There was an awful chattering noise as the spiders clambered higher and higher toward the upper room, making to swarm out into the wider text. Both women shouted at the same instant: “Jack, get down!” Miss Fisher was swatting at the arachnids with the first piece of rubble that had come to hand, but Thursday still had her gun drawn.

It was, by Jack’s later recollection, an absolutely phenomenal pair of shots. Thursday’s Eraserheads arced with precision between the lines of text, burying themselves in the staff in Murrich’s hand without disturbing so much as a comma otherwise. There had been an awful screech, and the skittering pile had retreated into nothingness, leaving Murrich panting and injured but alive, and the body of another character reformed on the floor, even as the roof continued to fall in. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Thursday groaned. “Magical spiders that eat scenery as a defense mechanism. I should have wiped out that staff as soon as I found out about it. Inspector, you and Miss Fisher carry Murrich… or whoever he is now, I’ve got this person. I think we’re going to need to get out of here.”

The Inspector was still wobbly, but between him and Miss Fisher, they were able to heave the former Egyptian sorcerer up the stairs, down the hall and out of a handy window that led onto the Town Hall’s lawn, to be caught by Phryne-2, who had been collecting people while she raced through the narrative as it began to come apart. Miss Fisher came next, and the two women caught Jack as he rolled over the windowsill. As Thursday lagged behind them, she could hear Miss Fisher muttering about spiders, “…beastly furry things with too many legs and they _bite_ …” and a restrained chuckle from Jack. The mild-faced, balding man she was carrying stirred, and when she looked down, she could see his mouth moving, trying to form words.

“Tell me your name,” she demanded, “can you talk to me?”

“I’m… My name is Murdoch Foyle,” he said. “Have I been reborn?” Before Thursday could answer, he passed out again, eyes rolling back in his head. _Murdoch. Sounds like that spider staff borrowed some writing out of Murrich to bring Hoyt back as Foyle,_ she thought. They would have to find him a new placement, once he recovered. _I wonder if he’ll remember what happened._

Outside on the lawn, the book was deteriorating rapidly, large chunks of the text now vacillating between languages as the setting wandered around. Gang members were consoling museum-goers and students, and several of the party guests had formed a human chain to pull people out of the mess that was the end chapters. Dot’s signal had gotten everyone’s attention, but nobody knew quite what to do. As Thursday watched, the Butlers scrambled out of a car on the curb, pulling Jane protectively between them. She staggered up to Phryne-2, threw her arms around her adoptive mother, and began to cry in earnest. Then, ominously, the chapter heading switched to Epilogue, just for a moment, and Thursday knew, deep in her gut, that the story was a lost cause. “We need to get everyone out this instant. The narrative has gone haywire, and the book is coming apart!” Thursday shouted to Miss Fisher. “Time to evacuate!” Miss Fisher gave a businesslike nod, and strode to the head of the chapter, where the quote stood. Deftly, she arranged the chapter quote until it read:

## It was an icy day.  
We buried the cat,  
then took her box  
and set fire to it  
in the back yard.  
Those fleas that escaped  
earth and fire  
died by the cold. – William Carlos Williams

“There’s our book-wide signal, the poem _Complete Destruction,_ ” Phryne called to the assembled characters. “It will show up in every chapter we still have. Get what you can and let’s go before the whole thing comes down around our ears.” Miss Fisher manned the chapter exit between twelve and thirteen, counting characters as they sprinted out the doors of the Town Hall and into the Storycode warehouses. Sharkbait had collected every animal he could find and herded them her way with a boat paddle he had snatched up from somewhere, looking for all the world like a heavily-tattooed Noah. Caleb stationed himself at the end of six, managing the chaos with remarkable aplomb as people hauled bits of scenery, clothing and props out through his beautiful restaurant. Just before The Blue Oyster finally folded itself into the museum and crushed the setting to pieces, he mounted the Harley that had been abandoned by MSEC and roared out into the warehouse with James Clarence in the sidecar. Dot and Joanie all but dragged several of the women out of a collapsing brothel, tossing one from an upper window into the waiting arms of Thursday after the woman flat refused to abandon her parlor without several items of Miss Fisher's clothing that she had accidentally been assigned during the flexations. In a short while, they had all been collected in the warehouse a safe distance from the Storycode engine, and Bradshaw and several other members of Jurisfiction were taking down statements and cordoning off the nearby Engines, trying to protect them from the chaos. All of the MSEC members had been handcuffed and led away, save for Nattie, who stayed at her Editrix post, typing frantically to preserve the chapter thirteen exit throughout the combustion and collapse. As soon as the final Generic, one of the cultists from the museum, came bolting out with her cat in her arms, Bradshaw threw the lever to shut the Engine down. Phryne-2 was still holding onto Jane; Miss Fisher was holding hands with Jack without either of them realizing it as they watched the book shut down. An eerie silence dropped into the warehouse, and the characters instinctively drew together in the dim emergency lights. It was as if _The Yarra Razors_ had never been written.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious, the Latin translates to:  
> The day of wrath, that day  
> will dissolve the world in ashes,  
> David being witness along with the Sibyl.  
> Dot is not pulling her punches here.


	14. Chapter 14

The aftermath of the collapse of _The Yarra Razors_ was a shell-shocked sort of peacefulness. After everyone had been accounted for, they started to drift around, reclaiming their possessions and finding their friends and loved ones in the mass of characters milling around in the warehouse. Thursday stood aside, listening to Dot and her sister Joanie chat aimlessly with Nattie while TGC assessed what remained of the book. She would debrief with Bradshaw once he was free.

“But what will we do? I can move to another book, but Joanie’s home is _The Yarra Razors_.” Dot shook her head and clutched her sister’s hand. 

“I’m sure that it can be salvaged,” Nattie replied, looking shamefacedly at the ground. “I tried – we all tried, I swear, Dot. Agent Next showed me a lot of tricks, and we managed to get everyone else out safely at least. But after Hoyt started killing the Inspector, the whole middle of the action began to contract, and I couldn’t do anything but try and take more of his powers away. I don’t think I ever want to see another keyboard again in my life.” She wrung her hands and flinched slightly.

“I’m sure you did your best, Miss Nattie.” Joanie looked at her curiously. “Do you think you’ll go back to your book?”

“Agent Bradshaw said there might be some clemency for me, since I tried to reverse what we did, and since Hoyt had already been demonstrating 'erratic and inconsistently characterized behavior.'” She sighed unhappily, and both Dot and Joanie reached out reflexively to comfort her. “As it stands, I’m still looking at a veritable run-on sentence of imprisonment. I wonder if Agent Next would be a character witness for me in Kafka, not that that would help much.”

“Well, you know what charges you're facing, so that's a help. And I’m sure between Miss Phryne and Miss Agent Next, they’ll think of a way to make it fair. You did try to help us, after all,” Dot said. “Now, come along, let’s get you a cup of tea and something for those bitten-up nails of yours.” Obediently, Nattie followed the two sisters off towards the salvage pile, where Miss Fisher’s dining room table had been set up and laid with a full meal and tea service inside of Hoyt's old office. Generics were everywhere, sitting on sarcophagi and old trunks, drinking whiskey and lemonade, trying to figure out what they would do next. Rigel hadn’t been found, but the Hispano was being dragged away for repairs and refitting. Thursday moved further afield, to where Miss Fisher was chatting with her duplicate. From a distance, the two women were the same character, but as Thursday approached, she could pick out individualities that must have started to occur when the two had been working through the book apart from each other. Phryne-2’s eyes were still their original emerald green, but Miss Fisher’s were now a dark blue. Where Phryne-2’s face was still smooth as a porcelain doll’s, Miss Fisher’s had gained a few laugh lines at the corners of her eyes, and a freckle here and there under her makeup. As they talked, Jack drifted by, drawing the mildly lascivious attention of both, but it was Miss Fisher’s gaze that lingered longest, and was the more thoughtful. Phryne-2's attention was soon drawn away by a slightly breathless Lin Chung striding up to take her into his arms. _I’m going to have to do something about that_ , Thursday thought to herself. _They aren’t going to want to go back to status quo._ As she mulled the possibilities over, Phryne looked up and turned her way, a determined look on her face.

“Agent Next,” she said with a slightly forced cheerfulness. “I wanted to return your remaining Eraserheads, and thank you for all your help trying to keep our book together.” She dropped the bullets into Thursday’s outstretched hand, and Next counted them carefully back into their box. “We all appreciate your service, and hope that you’ll stay in contact while we put _Yarra_ back together.”

“Actually, Miss Fisher, I was just coming to talk with you about that. Could I have a word?” She drew the detective away from the earshot of the others. “Now, I know you’ll want to oversee all the reconstruction efforts, but given the damage, there’s going to need to be some serious plot overhaul and reconsrtuction. While we’re rewriting, anyone who wants to make a genre or book change just needs to drop me the word, and I will make it happen.”

“I’ll pass the idea around,” Phryne said. “Caleb indicated he was interested in a move to Comics, especially after seeing MSEC’s modern tech, but I think most of the rest of them are just hoping to have homes to go back to.” Thursday pulled out her notebook and laid it down on a nearby table to write.

“Caleb L. Fox – supporting character, gradation in flux; move to modern-era comics, got it.” She looked up earnestly. “Miss Fisher, please make sure everyone knows that I’m willing to find whatever placements suit people best. Jurisfiction is deeply sorry for the loss of your book, and we’d like to do whatever we can to make amends.”

“Thank you, Agent Next,” Phryne said, “but the fault is as much mine as anyone’s, so please don’t think I blame you. We might have still had a chance before all that magic put the exclamation point on things. Had I been a better shot, Hoyt wouldn’t have turned into… those…ugh... spiders and tried to bring the building down.”

“Talking of which, did you get a chance to speak with the character they left behind? I lost track of him once I pulled him out of the book. Foyle was his name.”

“I didn’t, I’m afraid,” Phryne replied. “But I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually.” As she and Thursday chatted, the agent’s attention was drawn away by Bert arguing with Bradshaw about whom, exactly, the cab he had been driving belonged to, and she strode away to arbitrate. Miss Fisher used the opportunity to sneak a peek at the remaining writing in Next’s notebook. 

Thursday’s list detailed the status of most of the characters, and things were looking a little grim. Mr. and Mrs. Butler, Jane, Ruth and Rosie had all been written out of the book entirely, though they could come back in a later book if they wanted to. Jack was going to be all but indistinguishable from himself if he did try to reappear. Sharkbait was game to stay, but both Murrich and James Clarence had been injured and were going to need some time recuperating. James Clarence had also apparently put in a name change request. _What a mess,_ she thought hopelessly. _And two Backstories for me too, which ought to be giving me a hideous headache._ But… she realized with a start, she didn’t have a headache at all. She didn’t have to watch Jack die anymore, and even though the story was no good, the people were all still here, ready to try again. She felt revitalized - ready to conquer Melbourne anew. She felt like a whole new character. At that thought, a full-blown idea gleamed in her brain like the sun through a mountain fog. “Agent Next!” she called, drawing her away from Bert, who was still bickering with Bradshaw, but with considerably less volume. Thursday hurried back, concern on her face, but Phryne was now beaming. 

“What is it?”

“Since we’ll be doing a good bit of rebuilding anyway, what would you think about a media split?”

“How do you mean?” 

“Well, we need to put the book back together, and we can use the old Backstory version to do it. But, we could also preserve the new Backstory that has some of the MSEC edits, move it to the next building over, and start us up again in Television. I could take that lead and Phryne-2 could drop her numeric, and take over the book lead, since the old Backstory has attached itself to her.” Thursday nodded seriously, mulling it over.

“That might work. Some of the trouble you had at the beginning was because they were using TV formatting instead of Book, so it would actually be less work to preserve it.” Phryne’s smile grew wider. “Anyone who couldn’t or didn’t want to stay with the book would be welcome to come with you, and we could use the new trajectory to regain the interest that might have been damaged during the book’s failure.” She watched the Miss Fisher’s eyes dart around the warehouse, and settle on a figure doing up his tie with hesitant flexes of his fingers. He was standing by Rosie, but their mutual body language was tentative and cool, not the warmth of a happy marriage that it had once been.

“We’ll need to train a new Jack and Rosie for the books, I think,” was all she said.

“That can be managed if it needs to be done. Let’s make this happen.” Thursday gave a decisive nod. It was a good plan. They’d need an upgraded wardrobe budget, of course, which was not her wheelhouse, but maybe Marianne Dashwood could put her in contact with the right people. She was a pilot herself, at least when she was off-duty; surely, she’d feel some affinity for a fellow flyer who’d lost her wardrobe after a reversal of circumstances. Thursday pulled out her footnoterphone and began dialing while Miss Fisher strode away to speak to Bradshaw. But, before she could reach him, she felt a pluck at her elbow: Lord Peter Wimsey.

"Hullo m'dear," he said, "I haven't long, had to wait until Bunter carried the narration for a bit, but I wanted to let you know, anything, anything at all I can do to help, drop me a line." His long face was earnest, and Phryne felt a fresh smile breeze across her face.

"Peter, you are a darling. Do you think you'd have room in one of your books for Nattie over there? She's a reformed revolutionary with excellent typing skills, and she's going to need to serve a bit of a sentence. She'd probably like to stay away from anything romantic, but she might like a mildly thrilling assignment here or there." Peter glanced over to where Nattie was getting a sandwich with an appraising arch of his eyebrow.

"I think Miss Murchison could find a place for her in the typing pool," he replied.

"Excellent," said Miss Fisher, planting a kiss on his cheek. "Now, I have some work to do, and you have a body to investigate. Off you go. Oh, and if Bunter knows a Generic with the requisite butlering skills, have him send the man my way, over in Television. My love to Harriet." As she wafted away, Lord Peter smiled. She was going to be just fine. And, judging by the admiring looks she was giving to the well-characterized man in the fedora, who returned her gaze with a rather affectionate one of his own, she might be finding her own Harriet soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes, for those who might not be familiar with the references:  
> Nattie is worried about having her trial in Kafka because the plot is in part about the accused attempting to find out what his charge even is.
> 
> Miss Murchison runs the typing pool begun by Lord Peter so he can get the dirt in the world of widows, spinsters and those who employ a typist.
> 
> My personal headcanon is that Phryne and Peter were almost definitely FWB at some point in their Backstories, given their similar temperaments (and driving habits!) and the fact that their books are right next door to each other. Harriet Vane is the woman that Peter is in love with. He proposes a few dozen times, but she won't have him until they've established themselves as equals, especially given his great wealth, title, and saving her from a murder conviction.
> 
> Marianne Dashwood smokes and flies a plane in Bookworld when she's not appearing in _Sense and Sensibility_ , so I think she and Phryne probably get along too, even if Marianne thinks Phryne is too cynical.
> 
> Caleb L(ucius) Fox is heading off to a Batman comic. He's moving up in the world! I'm so proud of him.
> 
> Stay tuned for the Epilogue!


	15. Epilogue

# STANLEY ESTATE, MASTER BATHROOM – DAY

# A richly-appointed bathroom, with a blobby chalk outline of a body traced on the marble tile, the criminal evidence a stark contrast to the expensive surroundings.

# PHRYNE FISHER, fabulous lady detective, is retouching her lipstick as a knock comes on the door.

#    


PHRYNE

# 

This lavatory is fully occupied!

# 

(to herself) Yes, I think I like that better than the other way.

# She opens the door to reveal THURSDAY NEXT and JACK ROBINSON standing behind it.

  


# 

THURSDAY

# 

What do you think of the new digs, you two?

# 

PHRYNE

# 

I love it! No more dialogue tags to worry about!

# She adjusts her hat in the mirror, catching Jack’s amused expression in the mirror’s reflection. She gives him a cheeky wink.

  


# 

JACK (businesslike)

# 

It will take some getting used to, but I think Constable Collins and I will be able to manage as well.

# 

PHRYNE

# 

Oh, and where is dear Hugh?

# Thursday enters the bathroom, stepping over the chalk outline with care, and checks to make sure the cabinets are properly stocked with medicine bottles and a box of pink packets. She appears satisfied with the arrangement.

  


# 

THURSDAY

# 

Introducing himself to the new Dorothy Williams; she just arrived from TGC this morning and has been setting up the Stanley Estate. He seems a bit dubious of her Catholicism, but that’s only to be expected. I’m hoping he’ll come around soon.

# Jack and Phryne share a conspiratorial look. Clearly, they are ready to insist that this course of true love is to run smooth in the end.

  


# 

PHRYNE

# 

Oh, and do you know when I’ll be taking delivery of my new Hispano-Suiza? It is in the handbook that detectives get a distinctive car, you know.

# 

THURSDAY

# 

Not until the second episode, I’m afraid. It’s an inciting incident for the plot. Plus, Professor Plum is still trying to get it back from Miss Havisham after she took it racing on Pendine Sands.

# Jack enters the room as well, picking up a tumbler on the vanity to examine it, familiarizing himself with the room. 

  


# 

JACK

# 

Miss Fisher, is it really necessary to have another one of those death-traps? Can’t you make do with, I don’t know, an expensive horse or a bicycle or something?

# 

PHRYNE

# 

But Jack, if I have the horse, how will you ride in as my white knight? Although picturing you on a bicycle does present an interesting look at your…

# 

JACK (Interrupting hurriedly)

# 

Thank you, Agent Next. Would it be possible to switch back to Narrative for a moment?

# 

THURSDAY

# 

Of course, I apologize Jack. You’re still getting used to Script.

They leapt neatly out of the page and landed together on the floor of the Storycode warehouse for Television - Detective. It was a rather different ambiance than Novel - Detective had been. There was far more light, for one thing, since the windows were cleaner and the floors were newer and much more highly-polished. Miss Fisher scuffed a new red sandal on the pale maple paneling, swaying for the sheer joy of feeling her skirt swish deliciously around her calves. She’d already met her new neighbor, Father Brown, and had a delightful cup of tea with him and Mrs. McCarthy. In fact, it was her schoolfellow from St. Tabularasa’s that was going to be Phryne’s new aunt.

“She’s absolutely top-notch, Miss Fisher,” Mrs. McCarthy had exclaimed. “A true mistress of the art of obstructionist relatives, but she got the top mark in our Humor exams as well. I take absolutely no shame from coming in second to Prudence. I think you two will work quite nicely against one another.” Phryne recalled herself from the memory of the delicious strawberry scones to hear Jack asking about the day’s work on the remains of _Yarra_. Thursday had come directly from there, apparently.

“Murrich has adopted a new name,” she was explaining. “He’s decided to become a minor, yet complex, villain. He’s going by Marrin now, and we’ve found him a new partner. We’ve got an excellent safecracking puzzle for our new basic plot, and Lord Wimsey has made a very generous donation of some of the setting extras in _Gaudy Night_ , so we’ve moved a chunk of the action to a Sydney university.”

“Do you have a title yet?” Miss Fisher asked.

“We don’t, but Sharkbait has suggested something to do with cricket, since there’s a tournament that’s going to underpin some of the setting. He’s quite keen, apparently.” Thursday shook her head. Croquet was much more her sport, but she could appreciate any solidly British game played with a ball, a stick, and a good set of pads. She and Sharkbait had had a rousing discussion of the variations of the Offside rule which ended with him colliding exuberantly with a wall and her inviting him to come to Swindon and watch some croquet with her and Landon the next time the finals rolled around. He would enjoy the flamethrowers, she felt.

“What do you think, Jack,” Phryne queried. “ _Murder on Appeal_? _Corpse in Baggy Greens_?” Jack smiled cheerfully, but shook his head.

“I will defer. I’m not even in that book to have a whisper near naming it.”

“Well, that’s hardly fair to deny yourself. You did rather give your life to it repeatedly,” Phryne teased. “I petitioned to leave you a way back in though, should you ever want to dabble in it again.”

“Oh, how’s that?”

“Well, that awful cistern you know, Phryne-2 and I talked it over, and she’s going down it herself to get a certain Edmund Brazell rescued in this version of the book. If you and I were to pop into chapter eleven and do a quick swap with them, nearly the entire thing is conducted in the dark. We’d hardly be seen, and it would be nice to revisit the old stomping grounds. I’d just have to remember to call you by your middle name.” She smiled expansively at the Inspector, and he turned away, unsettled, examining the new cover attentively. If he hadn’t, he would have caught Thursday’s disbelieving look at Phryne, who waved it away. They stared at each other for a long moment, but it was the agent and not the detective who blinked first. _Fine. I guess I owe you for failing to save the book_ , Thursday thought, shrugging. _But he’s going to be awfully surprised when he finds out you do that chapter without any underwear on._ Probably, that was Miss Fisher’s entire intention.

“How about Ruth – I mean Jane,” Jack asked. “Has she settled in yet?” Ruth had decided that being written out from Yarra was an opportunity that she wouldn’t often have, and had requested to stay with Miss Fisher. She was going to try a few episodes out and see which realm she preferred. The original Jane, far from being hurt, had offered Ruth first pick of all the fragments that had been recovered from _Yarra_ to start her on her way in Television. So now, Ruth was the new Jane, with a new Bert and Cec being whipped into shape by the current ones to look after her properly.

“She’s helping Dot. They’re having a lot of fun abusing their credit with Wardrobe,” Thursday said with a grin. She couldn’t help it. Their happiness was infectious in the best way. “And I think I heard Phryne-2 in there too, suggesting suits to Doctor Mac.”

“Wonderful,” said Miss Fisher. I think I’ll go and join them, but before I do, I did have one other thing to ask you about.”

“What’s that?”

"Could you get him a car too? I think he's jealous." She gave a nod Jack's direction, and he pursed his lips in amusement. "Or at least a good bottle of whiskey for his desk."

"I think I can manage something like that," said Thursday. From inside her coat, she produced a dark bottle and a pair of glasses and handed them over with a hint of ceremony. "Here you are, you two. Toast me at the happy ending."

"We can do better than that, Agent Next," Jack said lightly, handing her the tumbler that he was still holding "Here." They filled the glasses and he lifted his in a toast. Thursday and Phryne followed suit. "To a happy beginning."

"To the next adventure," added Miss Fisher, "for us all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in case anyone doesn't know which book _The Yarra Razors_ has been turned into, it is, in fact, Kerry Greenwood's very own _Death Before Wicket_. And while I can't write smut for anything, she certainly can. Hence, you can all consider chapter 11 from there your bonus scene, done by a very good writer indeed. ;-)


End file.
